GOVERNMENT APPROVES PACKAGE OF BILLS ON REGULATION OF TRADEMARKS

NOYAN TAPAN
OCTOBER 22, 2009
YEREVAN

At the October 22 sitting, the Armenian government approved a
package of the following bills: the bill on trademarks, the bill on
geographical indications, the bill on making additions and amendments
to the RA Civil Code, abd the bill on making additions and amendments
to the RA Law on State Duty. Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan said that
adoption of the bills is conditioned by the necessity to improve the
system of legal protection of trademarks and to bring the Armenian
legislation on intellectual property into line with the EU legislation.

He said some enterprises have problems related to the package, adding
that the example of European countries shows how such problems should
be dealt with and it is necessary to follow their example.

"There is another problem which was raised during the recent visit of
a delegation from Kharkov. In particular, the director of a famous
Kharkov plant asked us to help with the sale of their traditional
goods such as chocolate and cakes in Armenia. They have difficulty
selling their goods here because their rival has registered these
trademarks in Armenia," the prime minister said, adding that no
products are manufactured under this brand in our country: the aim
is simply to force the rivals out of the competition field. According
to T. Sargsyan, such complaints have been also received from Russian
partners who said that if the problem is not solved, they will take
similar measures against Armenian producers.

During a briefing held following the government sitting, RA Deputy
Minister of Economy Vahe Danielian stated that the improvement of
legal protection of trademarks means first of all improvement of the
mechanisms for ensuring legal protection. There is a necessity to
envisage such a procedure of providing legal protection to trademarks
which will allow the holders of rights that emerged earlier to learn
about and, if necessary, to object to the registration of trademarks
whose use would violate their rights. In fact, this problem is solved
in the bill envisaging that within two months after the publication
of information about the registered trademarks, any interested person
may file a complaint against their registration, as a result of which
a desision will be made either to declare the registration of the
given trademark fully or partly invalid or to leave it in force.