The Russian Parliament has introduced a draft law according to which courts will have the ability to lower damages payable for infringements of exclusive intellectual property rights below the minimum figures established in the Russian Civil Code.  The proposed law relates to situations when one infringement touches upon a number of intellectual property rights; for which the right holder is entitled to compensation or damages.

At the same time, the draft law establishes a minimum limit for compensation for one infringement: 10,000 roubles. The authors of the proposed law suggest that the size of compensation should be determined by taking into account the circumstances of the case, the consequences and character of the infringement.  It is proposed that such an approach when calculating compensation will exclude situations compensation payable is manifestly unfair and disproportionate to the infringement.

Senior Associate at Maxima Legal, Maxim Ali, who specialises in intellectual property matters, commented that providing courts with more freedom to reduce compensation is justifiable, however, the current draft legislation has a number of inadequacies. The conditions for reducing compensation are rather abstract, and overall the draft law is more favourable for the person infringing intellectual property rights, when compared to the recent guidance from the Russian Constitutional Court, which is the source of the proposed changes to the Civil Code.

It is possible that in the event of a dispute, the Court will be able to reduce the compensation to the minimum level of 10,000 roubles. Accordingly a company seeking to protect its exclusive intellectual property rights might more cautiously approach issuing court proceedings.  From another side, companies who are defendants in such claims from right-holders will get an additional tool that can reduce the adverse effects of such legal disputes.

To read the full article (in Russian), please click on the following link.

Over the last few years the number of cyberattacks on banks has dramatically increased.  On the basis of a forecast made by Positive Technologies, which is cited by Kommersant Sankt-Peterburg, such crimes will continue to increase at least 30% a year.  According to data prepared by the Bank of Russia, in 2016 there were 717 unauthorised transfers from the accounts of organisations or companies with a value of 1.89 billion roubles, and from current accounts, there were 296,700 unauthorised operations with a value of 1.08 billion roubles.

Senior Associate at Maxima Legal, Maxim Ali, who specialises in IP/IT matters, commented that the St Petersburg City Court over the past few years has mainly refused claims from customers to recover losses from banks.  “In such situations the courts cite that banks have fulfilled all the legislative requirements and service conditions of the bank cards, and the customer’s consent to the operation was assumed, since a secret code was entered on his behalf. For example, a PIN code, CVV/CVC or security code sent by SMS.”

For the full version of the article (in Russian), click.

IT magazine Sodeistviye has published an article titled ‘What’s the future for IP anonymizers and VPNs?’, which considers the potential consequences resulting from the new amendments to the law ‘On information, information technology and data protection’.  The amendments will provide for a ban on the use of information systems and programmes which allow users access to sites blocked in Russia.

Senior Associate at Maxima Legal, Maxim Ali, who specialises in IP/IT matters, comments that the law contains very vague wording which provides for what constitutes a programme or function for getting around any blocks.  The only criteria used to determine whether a product can be used for blocking is that it enables access to material restricted in Russia.  Maxim considers that such an approach can present a host of practical challenges, as the definition is extremely broad and could cover a significant number of products that are currently available.

“Unfortunately the current approach for the past three to four years has been typical for legislation on regulating the internet.  The legislators increasingly favour a broad wording, suggesting that it is more important to pass the law now than to be concerned with its improvement.  The result of which is that the courts or Roskomnadzor must decide for themselves how to apply the law or its ambiguous provisions, which inevitability creates unpredictable risks for participants in the internet market.

“It is interesting that the uncertainty for internet companies can continue even after the passing of the legislation.  The method for searching by Roskomnadzor of programmes for the bypassing of blocks will be approved by them independently (after the law has been passed), as well as the procedure for its interaction with the owner of such programmes and search engines. This can also be a reason for extremely one-sided regulation of this field”, comments Maxim.
For the full version of the article (in Russian), please see the following link.