Russia has ratified the Singapore Trademark Law Treaty signed in Geneva

This Treaty is aimed at further harmonization of national laws of member countries as regards administration procedures related to registration of trademarks and licenses.

The Treaty's objective is to strive for equality of rights of Russian applicants abroad and foreign applicants in Russia.

The Treaty as well as the Instructions hereto include a detailed procedure of composing and filing applications for registration of trademarks and licenses issued, amendments to applications and other documents.

Ratification of the Singapore Treaty leads to necessity of making a significant number of amendments to Part 4 of the Civil Code of RF and relevant regulatory acts of Rospatent (Russian Patent Office). Particularly, it is necessary to increase a period of grace for revival of a missed period from 2 months to 6 months set for filing an appeal to the Chamber of Patent Disputes.
It is necessary to extend a number of persons having right to act as a representative of foreign applicants and holders of rights. At present such representatives shall be limited to patent attorneys.

In order to reserve registration of a trademark the Treaty allows presenting different documents confirming use of a mark by a licensee if there is no license registration available.

At present in the Russian Federation if there is no state registration of a license agreement, it shall mean it is invalid, therefore, a licensee's actions cannot be considered as a proper use of a trademark in this case.

The Singapore Treaty also establishes that when filing an application for registration of a license, negotiating parties cannot demand that an applicant should present a certificate of a trademark registration which is the subject of a license, a license agreement itself or its translation as well as information on commercial terms and conditions of a contract.
In accordance with the Instructions to the Singapore Treaty in this case a relevant authority may demand only an extract from a license agreement determining parties and rights granted, notarized or certified by any other competent body or an uncertified application for a license according to a form attached to the Instructions.

Besides, the Treaty provides for necessity of use electronic technologies while in Russian it is allowed that applications be filed on paper or by fax.

At this moment it is not clear how the provisions of the Singapore Treaty shall be applied prior to relevant amendments to the Russian law are made. In accordance with the general principle set in Part 4 of Article 15 of the Constitution of RF prior to relevant amendments are made and contradictions are eliminated, an international agreement should be applied.