On 3rd April 2017, President Putin of the Russian Federation (RU) signed a Federal law giving effect to the decision of the Parliament of the Russian Federation to ratify the Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs. The Geneva Act of 2nd July 1999 is the most recent text of the Hague Agreement, which was originally adopted in 1925. The Geneva Act, which had been agreed to in principle by the Russian Federation shortly after it was first proposed, will now become effective in Russia 180 days after official publication of the decision to ratify the Act.
Under the Hague Agreement, a single design application can be filed at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva and become effective in all states designated in the application at the same time, thus providing a cost-effective and convenient way of registering a single design in many territories in a single procedure. The European Union (EU) has been a party to the Hague Agreement for many years and applicants from the United Kingdom have therefore been able to take advantage of the system for international design registration by virtue of the United Kingdom’s membership of the EU. However, it is only comparatively recently that this became a more attractive proposition following ratification of the Geneva Act by Japan and the United States in 2015. Following the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the EU, it has been announced that the Government intends to ratify the Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement independently by 31st March 2018, which will allow UK applicants for international registered designs to continue to enjoy the benefits provided by the system.