On March 3, 2021, the Parliament of Kazakhstan adopted the law “On Ratification of the Agreement on trademarks, service marks and appellations of origin of goods of the Eurasian Economic Union”.
The agreement creates a new one-stop-shop registration system for trademarks of the Eurasian Economic Union and appellations of origin of goods on the territory of all EAEU member states: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia.
Kazakhstan remained the last EAEU country that did not complete the procedure for ratifying the Agreement on a single EAEU TM.
For the procedure for registering trademarks of the EAEU, a special agency will not be created – it will be possible to submit an application to the national patent office of one of the EAEU member states.
National IP Offices will conduct an examination of applications and enter information into the Unified Register of Trademarks and Service Marks of the EAEU. At the same time, the refusal of at least one Office to register TM will lead to a refusal in relation to the entire application.
Until a decision is made to register or refuse to register a trademark, the applicant may convert the application for the EAEU mark into a national one.
The term of the Eurasian trademark is 10 years from the filing date. The right to cancel a trademark on the basis of non-use occurs three years from the registration date. However, the lack of use must be proved in all five states at the same time.
At the same time, if the same trademark is registered in the name of the same person in the national registers of all five countries for fully or partially identical goods or services, the owner can apply for a single certificate for the EAEU trademark. Such a certificate is issued for the period of validity of the registration in the EAEU state in which the national certificate expires at the latest.
The rates for the registration of the EAEU TM will be determined by the Eurasian Economic Commission. Payments will be made in each country in national currency. It’s expected, that the total fees for filing, examination, and registration of a trademark will be around $1,200.