Legal Defence in Appeals Board

The Appeals Board is an organizational entity of the National Center of Intellectual Property of the Republic of Belarus (abbreviated as NCIP). The main competence of the Appeals Board is the pre-court settlement of disputes regarding industrial property.

The competence of the Appeals Board can be divided into three separate groups:

1.       processing of complaints against decisions of experts of the NCIP adopted at various stages of the processing of applications for inventions, utility models, industrial designs, trademarks and other industrial property objects;

2.       processing of objections to granted patents or certificates for various industrial property objects;

3.       processing of applications regarding recognition of trademarks in Belarus as well-known.

What is the difference between a complaint and an objection?

If we simplify, we can distinguish two main differences:

·         A person authorized to appeal;

·         A stage of registration of an object of industrial property; when you may appeal.

A complaint is appealed by the owner of the application for an object of industrial property. An objection is appealed by a person who is not an applicant, an owner of a patent or certificate for an invention, trademark, etc. (i.e. is not associated with a patent or certificate).

A complaint is appealed before the registration of an invention, trademark, etc. It means when NCIP experts refuse to register and issue a patent or certificate for one reason or another. An objection is applied only after the registration and the grant of a patent or certificate.

The recognition of a trademark as well-known is a separate category of cases, which is processed by the Appeals Board. In this case, the Appeals Board does not act as an arbitrator in a dispute, but as an expert body that decides whether to recognize or to refuse to recognize a trademark as well-known.

The meetings of the Appeals Board are open and adversarial in its nature. The parties to the dispute get an opportunity to express their position in writing and orally, and present evidence in its confirmation. The Appeals Board shares decision-making. Decisions of the Appeals Board can be appealed to the judicial board for intellectual property of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Belarus.