In the period August 17 - September 4, the Romanian customs officials seized perfumes and apparel believed to be counterfeit, valued at approximately EUR 200,000 (USD 260,000).

Hungarian authorities recently seized two laptops with unlicensed software and an automobile diagnostic device and cable kit believed to infringe the Mercedes® trademark...

The "ser korycinski swojski", oval-shaped, soft cheese from the northeastern Podlasie region is Poland’s 35th product to be granted the geographical indication (GI) status by the European Commission.

French champagne producer Louis Roederer cannot sell its Cristal champagne in Russia anymore, after losing a long legal battle against the Russian vodka manufacturer Soyuzplodoimport.

On September 22, 2010, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Russian Federal Service for Intellectual Property, Patents and Trademarks (Rospatent) signed an agreement under which Rospatent will serve as an International Searching Authority (ISA) and International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA) under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) for international applications received by the USPTO.

On August 7, the Moscow Commercial Court dismissed the Russia-based Businessinvestgroup’s legal action seeking to cancel the protection of the IRON BREW, IRN-BRU, Iron Brew and PHENOMENAL trademarks belonging to the Scottish soft drink manufacturer AG Barr, on the grounds of non-use in Russia.

Serbia adopted the Law on the Protection of Topographies of Semiconductor Products in July 2013; now this relatively new piece of legislation is facing amendments again.

The new regulation also introduced a new application for action form, similar to the EU form used under the EU Regulation.

The decision of the SAC is final and not subject to appeal.

Bulgarian officials at the Customs Office in Plovdiv, central Bulgaria, seized thousands of counterfeit toys, work gloves and watches while inspecting three trucks with Iranian license plates.

The Czech Statistical Office (CSU) has recently released a report on domestic patent applications for the period 2002–2011, which shows that the Czech PTO approved 2,904 patents out of 6,848 patent applications in this period.

According to the latest Business Software Alliance (BSA) and International Data Corporation (IDC) global software piracy report released in May 2010, Georgia is the country with the highest software piracy rate, 95 percent, with the commercial value of unlicensed software estimated at USD 22 million (EUR 16 million) in 2009.

On September 8, 2010, Kazakhstan deposited its instrument of accession to the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks, adopted in Madrid on June 27, 1989.

During regular controls at Macedonia’s border crossings in the period between September 20 and October 10, 2010, the customs officials detained a considerable quantity of goods bearing well-known brand names, believed to be counterfeit.

World’s largest furniture retailer IKEA has recently filed a trademark infringement suit against Russian resident Azamat Yulbarisov, the owner of the website dostavkaikea.ru, and the website provider Garant-Park-Telekom.

As prescribed by the WTO, the Russian government’s order introduced equal fees for both domestic and foreign applicants.

Stolichnaya and Moskovskaya trademarks have been the objects of a dispute between the Russian government and the SPI Group for over 10 years.

RU MARKS notes that Holmrook Limited also used to be the owner of the domain names tissot.ru and longines.ru, identical to word marks owned by Tissot and Longines.

According to a recent report by Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, 24 percent of the goods sold in 2009 in Russia’s major retail sectors, including apparel, footwear, medicines, alcohol, tobacco, household chemicals and cosmetics, were counterfeit.

During regular controls at Macedonia’s border crossings in the period August 27 – September 13, 2012, the customs officials seized a considerable quantity of goods bearing well-known brand names, believed to be counterfeit.