It has been widely acknowledged that current international intellectual property (IP) standard setting is carried through bilateral and plurilateral negotiations, and that the EU is very much involved in this process. It is notably the case of standards pertaining to the rights protecting designs, which received a particularly flexible set of minimum standards under the TRIPS WTO agreement. Building on the growing research both in IP rights in preferential trade agreements and design law, this article looks at the IP chapters of EU agreements with third countries, assessing their deepness and the flexibility they maintain to uncover the trends of such design law internationalization. It evaluates how design rights, which have been seen in the past as less instrumental for business expansion abroad, compared to trademark right and copyright, start to be elevated as strategic tools for business internationalization

Since April 2019, Russian intellectual property law has been enriched by an interpretative Resolution of the highest judicial instance, the Plenary Session of the Supreme Court, which performs, among other prerogatives, the task to ensure the correct and uniform application of law.** The last time a judicial instrument of an equivalent scale was adopted was in 2009 (the Joint Resolution No. 5/29 of 26 March 2009 of the Plenary Sessions of the Supreme Court and of the Supreme Arbitration Court ‘On certain issues arising in connection with the enactment of Part Four of the CCRF’). Back then a significant number of issues deriving from the introduction in 2006 of Part Four of the Civil Code (dedicated to Intellectual Property) were identified, solved and converted into guidance for courts and other legal professionals. Now, subsequent revisions of the legislation, primarily aimed at its ‘modernisation’, as well as the adoption of other modifying instruments (such as the Ruling of the Constitutional Court n° 28-P of 13 December 2016), pushed by a growing IP practice and disparate case law, have provided a fertile ground for this new supreme judicial effort. The outcome is generous – useful to those wishing to acquire a global overview of Russian IP law. It slightly resembles a Prévert’s inventory, as many issues are touched upon with a varying depth, length and degree of sophistication. Although some observers have deplored the avoidance of this or that issue, the document is comprehensive and lengthy (182 paragraphs), and generally lauded by the Russian IP community.1

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The comment reviews key positions issued in the rulings of September and October 2021 by the Presidium of the Russian Intellectual Property Court (IPC). This Chamber hears cassation appeals against the decisions of the IPC first instance and deals primarily, but not only, with matters of validity of registered intellectual property rights. Therefore, this review primarily deals with substantive requirements for patent and trademark protection, as well as with procedural issues both in the administrative adjudicating mechanism at the Patent office (Rospatent) and at the IPC itself. The current review covers such issues as appeals against patent term extension (supplementary patent), appeals against partial refusals of trademark applications, distinctive character of trademark elements, a party's interest in judicial proceedings on unfair competition involving trademarks, and conflicts between trademarks and company names.