Ivan Nikitchenko

A company’s trademark activity is a very telling indicator of whether it is interested in a particular country’s or region’s market. Often, a national intellectual property (IP) office or the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) IP registry can speak loudest about a company’s true intentions. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022. It is instructive to examine how foreign companies behaved with respect to IP registration and renewal in Ukraine to predict how they view business prospects in Ukraine going forward.

In November, 2019, amendments to the Customs Code of Ukraine regarding the protection of intellectual property rights when moving goods across the customs border came into force. The principle of international exhaustion of rights was officially introduced into Ukrainian legislation with this Law.

In June 2019, five-years of legal proceedings between Microsoft and Zhytomyrgas PJSC in the Ukrainian courts came to an end. The parties began their battle in the context of criminal proceedings and ended the dispute in the economic court. Microsoft ultimately was successful. Ukraine has been among the countries on the U.S. Special 301 Report, prepared by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, for years due to its high rate of copyright violations. Ukrainian citizens, government agencies and enterprises are no exceptions. At the same time, Ukraine ranks second in Eastern Europe in the number of software developers and number one in the world in the number of developers per 1,000 inhabitants.