A Parallel Tug Of War In Parallel Import: Russia And Ukraine Grope For A Solution

There was no such concept as a parallel import in the USSR. When the USSR split, and the market economy came into being, many companies obtained the rights to import goods of all kinds. Accordingly, imports included the flow of goods authorised by the trademark owners as well as the goods imported by parallel importers without the knowledge of the relevant IP owner. Each country sought to regulate the parallel import and searched its way to deal with it from that time on. In Russia, legal regulation went from one extremity to another. When the first version of Trademark Law was adopted in 1992, Article 23 read that registration of a trademark does not allow its owner to forbid the use of the trademark in respect of the goods marketed by its owner or on his approval.