Ukraine - Reorganization of the Ukrainian Patent Office
According to the official website of the Ukrainian Institute of Intellectual Property (a.k.a. Ukrpatent) on October 28, 2022 the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine adopted a decree which effectively appoints the state organization Ukrainian National Office of Intellectual Property and Innovations (UKRNOIVI) as the entity performing the functions of the National Intellectual Property Authority (NOIV) and relieves Ukrpatent of these functions.
The website further reported on November 7, 2022 that in accordance with the above-mentioned decree Ukrpatent has terminated all activities related to the performance of its functions as NOIV as of November 8, 2022, midnight. That included accepting payments of official fees for actions related to the protection of intellectual property rights.
The transfer of the NOIV functions from Ukrpatent to UKRNOIVI was to be expected as it was designated by the legislation to be one of the steps in reforming the governmental institutions with respect to intellectual property.
Due to routine maintenance, electronic filing as well as the option to submit applications via e-mail are temporarily suspended. The maintenance work is caused by the ongoing changes in the governmental institutions related to intellectual property rights, namely the transfer of the NOIV functions from Ukrpatent to UKRNOIVI in accordance with the above-mentioned decree of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.
The management of UKRNOIVI apologizes for the temporary inconvenience and assures that they are making every effort to complete the necessary work and resume electronic services soon.
The date when documents were actually submitted to the National Intellectual Property Authority will be reflected in the electronic database as the date of receipt.
How will this affect the applicants and their representatives? In addition to the temporary inconvenience caused by the suspension of e-submission of primary and secondary documents for intellectual property applications, this leads to a filing fee increase by 20%, since electronic filing was encouraged by a 20% reduction of the official fee. Moreover, the representatives may need to submit the filing documentation (description, claims, drawings and abstract) in three copies, as was standard procedure before the electronic system was introduced. Accordingly, all this will lead to an increase in costs for the applicants. We believe that this state of affairs will not last long and the electronic filing system will be restored soon.
On the other hand, the procedure of paying patent fees for titles of protection will remain unchanged. As before, the fees are paid to the State Treasury’s account, since patent fees in Ukraine are traditionally remitted directly to the state budget instead of to the Patent Office’s account.
Additionally, particular attention should be paid to the issue of compliance with the deadlines for submitting documents to the Ukrainian NOIV, whose functions are now performed by UKRNOIVI. On April 13, 2022, the law On the protection of the interests of persons in the sphere of intellectual property during the effective term of martial law came into force in Ukraine. The law suspended the deadlines related to the protection of intellectual property rights, and allowed authorized persons to submit documents (applications, requests, objections, responses, etc.), within 90 days after martial law is lifted, without paying any fees for the extension or restoration of the relevant deadlines.
We will promptly inform you of all further developments related to the protection of intellectual property in Ukraine by posting up-to-date information on our website.