The Russian Patent and Trademark Office announced the launch of fully operational electronic filing system for trademarks. The system requires installation of special software and use of certified electronic signature but it allows the user to compose and file trademark applications electronically with immediate assignment of application's number and no need for subsequent filing of papers. Our firm intends to install this system and to use it where appropriate.

In July's newsletter of our firm you will find an alert about important changes in sunrise policy for .рф domain names which comes into force from July 15, 2010. These changes give more opportunities for Cyrillic domain name registrations for more rights holders. Do not miss your domain name, download and read our recent newsletter: NEWSLETTER, JULY 01, 2010.

On July 01, 2010 the Customs Code of a newly formed customs union of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus came into force. This Customs Code has special provisions regarding protection of IP rights on the borders of the union. The countries agreed that they would suspend importation of any goods suspected to be counterfeits for 10 days and inform the right holder about these suspected counterfeits. The countries will keep their own separate customs' registers of IP rights as well as establish the union's register.

In May 2010 the Best Lawyers, the oldest international ranking provider, published a new ranking list of best Russian lawyers. Three partners of our firm: Mark Chizhenok, Alexey Ivanov and Dmitry Makarov were included in the ranking among the best Russian lawyers in intellectual property matters, thus making our firm No. 4 in Russia by the number of the best IP lawyers in a single firm. The listing was published in the Russian media and it is also available for subscribers of bestlawyers.com.

.

On May 22-26, 2010 two partners of our firm, Dmitry Makarov and Mark Chizhenok, attended the 132nd Annual Meeting of International Trademark Association in Boston (USA) - a premier event for the trademark practitioners from all over the world. It was also the first INTA event in which the law firm "Ivanov, Makarov & Partners" was presented as a full member of this international organization. In Boston our delegates met many of the firm's current and perspective clients as well as foreign colleagues.