Some crucial issues and trends in the IP area have come into focus at important sector-specific conferences held on April 16-17, 2025.

April 16: Intellectual Property-2025 Forum

At the 26th forum hosted by R-Conf, Aleksey Darkov, Head of IP Practice, gave a report on "Inventors vs. Employers: Current Practice and Case Law on Disputes Involving Inventors and Employers", delving into significant precedent cases concerning employee’s inventions, utility models and industrial designs, with particular attention on the explanations given by the Russian Constitutional Court regarding the possibility of reducing remuneration payable to inventors if their inventions are insufficiently used by employers, as well as the issues relating to proportional distribution of remuneration between co-inventors.

April 17: Pravo.ru: Intellectual Property 2025 Conference

Aleksey Darkov and patent attorney Maria Moishe, VERBA LEGAL’s Senior Associate, spoke about how to efficiently protect the applicant’s confidentiality when registering trademarks. The experts highlighted the reasons why companies seek to conceal their profile information when filing an application including sanctions-related and reputational risks as well as the determination to keep a new brand secret until its official release.

The participants were offered practical solutions:

– concealing the data in the register in compliance with the Russian Government Decree dated 02 September 2024;

– registering through third parties with subsequent transfer of rights;

– using a closed-end investment fund as an anonymity tool.