On December 16, 2019 the parliamentary hearings “Building an Effective Intellectual Property Protection System in Ukraine” were held. They were organized by the Committee on Economic Development of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

 Representatives of Pakharenko & Partners headed by Antonina Pakharenko-Anderson, Managing Partner and registered Patent and Trademark Attorney, took part in this event, and the company’s Partner, Director of the Ukraine Alliance Against Counterfeiting and Piracyand Attorney-at-Law Alexander Pakharenko delivered a report on “Strengthening responsibility for production and sale of counterfeit products”.

 In his report Alexander highlighted the issues that need to be urgently addressed and suggested the measures that will allow to improve the situation:

— To restore the sanctions of “imprisonment and destruction of counterfeit products/equipment and materials, which were specifically used for manufacture of such products” in the Articles  176, 177, 203-1, 229 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine;

— Todecreasethe threshold forcriminalliabilityunderArticles 176, 177, 229 oftheCriminalCode, inparticularbyintroducinganewmechanismforqualifyingcrimesinthiscategory;

— To increase the fines for the crimes related to IP infringement;

— To amend the Article 96-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine by excluding special confiscation in respect of counterfeit goods, materials/raw materials and equipment used for manufacture of such goods (Articles 176, 177, 229 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine)

— To increase the fine under Article 51-2 of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offences;

— Todevelopaunifiedapproachincalculatingthedamagecausedbytheillegalactivitiesassociatedwithcounterfeitproductsinthecourse ofexpertstudiesandcourt examinations;

— Tointroduce administrative liability of third parties (market administrations, e-commerce platforms, etc.) for assisting in distribution of counterfeit products.