How ignoring trademarks can affect profit margins

With the organisation of Expo-2017 gaining momentum, the issue of securing trademarks as intangible assets in Kazakhstan, whether by national or international means, has become relevant for many companies. By registering a trademark, its owner is mitigating the risk of third parties infringing rights to trademarks, brand names, and may even protect their rights from third parties. More importantly, with ever increasing digital globalisation, the registration and use of domain names and their role in protecting rights to intellectual property in the event a domain name is similar to an existing legally protected trademark or brand name have become even more important.

However, since the institution of intellectual property is under developed in Kazakhstan, many companies use brands, logos, trademarks and images on goods and in services without legally registering them, and without checking for trademark infringements by third parties.

Current court practices show that entities using trademarks for commercial purposes sometimes only recognise they have violated third party rights when they receive a court order. There have been similar cases where not only the defendant comes to the wrong conclusions, but courts rule ambiguously, making it difficult not only for the parties to the dispute, but also for those entities applying the rulings in the future in law enforcement practices.

For this reason, in this documentwe take a look at the core issues around the legal protection of trademarks;the methods for revealing violations and protecting trademark rights; the rules for transferring and providing rights to use trademarks, including the issue of royalties;and analyse Kazakhstan court practices, the main recommendations of the international community, and many others.

We hope that you find the information in this document interesting and useful.