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Russian government proposed to exhaust USA trademarks rights in Russia as the answer to USA sanctions

The Russian government has decided to introduce its own sanctions as answer to USA’ sanctions and has proposed new law. The aim of draft law is to protect the national interests and security of Russia, the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens by way of measures preventing unfriendly and illegal action of foreign countries. The measures, provided in draft law, are mandatory for Russian state and local authorities, for Russian citizens and for legal entities under Russian jurisdiction.

The draft law proposes one interesting measure – exhaustion of rights in trademarks in relation to goods enlisted in governmental order, drafted and adopted special for this law, if the owner of trademark is a USA citizen and/or citizen of other foreign country, or is a legal entity under USA and/or other foreign country’s jurisdiction and is also legal entity if the share capital of such legal entity is controlled or owned (more than 25%), directly or indirectly, by organisation under USA and/or other foreign country jurisdiction.

Any measure, provided in draft law is to be implemented by the Russian government in accordance with decision of Russian president. The Russian president has authority to decide whether to introduce or suspend the implementation of any measure provided in proposed law. The adoption of this draft law would “stimulate development and improvement of domestic sectorial markets” states the explanation note to the draft.