News & Publications

The Slovak Chamber of Advocates (Slovenská advokátska komora) granted lawyer and patent attorney Natalya Lemeschuk the status of an international lawyer for Slovakia.

According to the Law “On Advocacy” of the Slovak Republic, an international lawyer has the right to practice and provide legal services on the territory of Slovakia in fields related to international law. This applies, in particular, to the following areas:

• International legislation on intellectual property;
• Corporate law and international private law agreements;
• International tax law;
• International litigation and international arbitration.

Also, an international lawyer, who is also a lawyer of Ukraine, has the opportunity to provide consultations and draft documents in accordance with Ukrainian legislation.

We hope that obtaining this status as a managing partner of PPF “Lex Intels” will contribute to the expansion of relations with colleagues and facilitate the provision of legal assistance to clients of our firm, including Ukrainians who are abroad.

On March 31, 2023, the law “On Media” entered into force, which launched the expected reform in the media sphere. Specialists hope that such a law will create a competitive media market with clear rules.

This is an important step on the way to EU integration, as the law on media brings the legislation in this area into line with the EU Directive on audiovisual media services, which is one of the 7 recommendations of the European Commission, which Ukraine received with the status of a candidate for EU membership.

According to the conclusions of the experts of the Council of Europe, the law is generally in line with the EU Directive on audiovisual media services, but still contains some inconsistencies that need to be corrected.

In particular, the law does not include signs of linguistic hostility, which is not allowed according to 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

In addition, restrictions on the timing of 16+ films only come into effect a year after the law is passed, which does not meet the standards of the Convention on Transfrontier Broadcasting.

Experts also identified two issues that cause concern.

First, the law does not specify why there may be exceptions to the disclosure of the reasons for which a person was included in the “prohibited list”, if all reasons are clearly stated in Art. 126 of the Law.

Secondly, experts believe that persons who are already on this “prohibited list” should be re-evaluated, as their inclusion in it is a serious restriction of freedom of expression.

In addition, experts emphasize the need to introduce some more amendments. In particular, they recommend expanding the definition of “journalist” to include self-employed journalists who are not affiliated with a media organization or union.

Therefore, it is possible that certain changes and additions to the law will be adopted in the near future.

In any case, the adoption of this law brings the legislation of Ukraine closer to the legislation of the European Union in the field of media and is an important step on the way to European integration.

The beginning of 2023 was fruitful for new legislative changes in the field of intellectual property. Thus, on January 1, 2023, the updated law “On copyright and related rights” entered into force.

The most interesting innovation was the protection of rights to the results of artificial intelligence (AI).

This is not about granting copyright directly to AI, so far such privileges belong only to humans (however, given the impressive success of ChatGPT, it is possible that we will witness such a change as well). The law provides for the existence of a special kind of rights (sui generis) to the so-called non-original objects generated by a computer program, that is, without the participation of a natural person. Such rights to AI-generated objects arise from persons who own property rights to the corresponding computer program. For example, ChatGPT chatbot was created by OpenAI LP Corporation.

However, the law provides for other important changes in the field of copyright protection that will interest not only specialists, but also creators and businesses:

• introduction of the criterion of originality of the work for obtaining protection, which previously in Ukraine could be found only in judicial practice;
• acquisition by default of the employer of property rights to a work created by an employee under an employment contract or contract, from the moment of its creation. This provision can also be attributed to works created to order;
• introduction of the concept of “orphan works” – these are works whose copyright holders have not been established or their location is unknown. For example, a picture of an unknown author in a museum, whose contacts and location could not be found, can be considered an orphan work.
• unification of the provision regarding the right of follow-up with EU rules. A mechanism is introduced to reward the author in case of resale of the original work, when the author and his heirs will have the right to receive a percentage of the sale price. Depending on the price of the subsequent sale, excluding taxes, the amount of fair remuneration can be from 0.25 to 6%, but not more than 12,500 euros.
• a provision has been established on the expiry of the period of validity of intellectual property rights to a work after 70 years, calculated from January 1 of the year following the year of the author’s death.

Therefore, the new law provides more effective protection of copyright, sets new standards for the protection of intellectual property in the online environment.

Stay up to date with the latest news and protect your copyright!

In the field of intellectual property, on October 13, 2022, a significant event took place – the antimonopoly body finally paid attention to the numerous appeals of patent attorneys and other business entities that provide trademark registration services, and conducted an audit of the activities of Ukrpatent regarding violations of the legislation on the protection of economic competition

 

Based on the results of the study of paid services provided by Ukrpatent, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine adopted recommendations according to which our patent office should provide free public access to information about all, without exception, applications for trademarks. In particular, Ukrpatent is recommended to publish applications for which the filing fee has not yet been paid, and the so-called “priority certificate” has not yet been sent to the applicant. As indicated by the AMCU, the volume of information on trademark applications should be sufficient for users to search by signs of identity/similarity and should be presented in a form that provides the possibility of selection according to the specified criteria.

 

The fact is that Ukrpatent currently provides paid search services with the provision of a report on identical or similar marks using its own internal information base, part of which data is restricted to the general public.

 

For example, a patent attorney who professionally deals with the registration of trademarks in Ukraine, by agreement with the client, usually conducts a preliminary search in the Special Information System of Ukrpatent. But he can get complete information about identical or similar signs only by ordering the corresponding paid service from Ukrpatent.

 

Thus, firstly, similar services of other business entities – patent law companies or patent attorneys – are less competitive and attractive to consumers, because they search for the identity and similarity of signs without having complete information about the submitted applications. As a result, the recipients of such services may suffer, having received a refusal to register a trademark precisely because of its identity or similarity to a trademark that was previously applied for registration. According to the antimonopoly body, this leads to a distortion of competition in the market for the provision of such services.

 

Secondly, as noted by patent attorneys and law firms themselves, this practice leads to a significant increase in costs associated with trademark registration.

 

The Antimonopoly Committee drew attention to the fact that, in accordance with the legislation of Ukraine, data on application materials from the date of their receipt to Ukrpatent and before the publication of information about them are not considered confidential information. As a result, the AMCU considers the actions of Ukrpatent to restrict access to this information to be a violation of antimonopoly legislation, to eliminate which the specified recommendations were provided.

 

We would like to remind you that the recommendations of the Antimonopoly Committee are mandatory for consideration by the entity within the established two-month period, and ignoring such acts may lead to the opening of proceedings against the state enterprise.

 

Therefore, we are eagerly awaiting a response from Ukrpatent and the opening of full access to all trademarks applied for registration in Ukraine.

Sources:

1. https://amcu.gov.ua/news/dostup-do-informaciyi-pro-totozhni-ta-shozhi-poznachennya-amku-nadav-rekomendaciyi-ukrpatentu?v=63491ace61fb0
2. https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/2210-14#Text
3. https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/3689-12

 

The Ministry of Digital Transformation and the Ukrainian blockchain community have launched a virtual museum that will feature drawings that are works of art and blockchain technologies; they, in chronological order, will reflect the history of Russian aggression against Ukraine. Currently, the museum presents a collection of NFT drawings by Ukrainian artists about the first six days of the war.

According to the Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, Mykhailo Fedorov, the world’s first NFT war museum collected more than 600,000 dollars in support of Ukraine on the first day of selling virtual exhibits. A total of 1,282 digital works of art were purchased. The collected funds will go to the cryptocurrency fund, which was created by the Ukrainian crypto exchange KUNA to support the Ukrainian army and digital and cyber resistance.

 

“We became the first to combine blockchain technology and modern art in order to document the historical truth about the Russian Federation’s war against Ukraine”, he reported on the Telegram channel Mykhailo Fedorov.

 

In recent years, we constantly hear the terms NFT or crypto-art, but it is not easy for people who are not related to information technology to understand it. Therefore, we are happy to share what we have already figured out ourselves.

 

NFT- art or crypto-art is digital art, the works of which can be seen only from digital electronic devices (gadgets). Accordingly, these works must be created digitally – images, music, 3D models, texts.

A digital virtual accounting unit with a certain value – a token – is attached to each image. Tokens can be interchangeable, then they can be exchanged as currency; examples of fungible tokens are Bitcoin, Ether, and other cryptocurrencies. Or tokens can be non-fungible – Non-fungible tokens (ie NFT); they are created in a single instance, contain identification information and are unique due to the blockchain technology, which allows you to store information about the owner of the token, about the history of its sale, but it is impossible to change the identification information.

 

The first NFTs appeared back in 2017 in the Ethereum system. Such tokens, like any cryptocurrency, can be stored in your crypto wallet and transacted, bought and sold. But bitcoins, etheriums and other digital currencies and even real money easily replace each other and are divided into parts. NFTs cannot be split into pieces or exchanged for a similar token. From this point of view, NFT has the properties of a unique object in the physical world.

 

That is why this technology is used to distribute digital collectibles, as the NFT contains both the digital object itself and information about the creator of the work (this is how NFTs help protect copyright) and data about the owner, namely his wallet number in the Ethereum system.

 

Therefore, authors of NFT works do not have to worry about plagiarism: even if someone takes a screenshot of the work and wants to pass it off as their own, the author or owner of the NFT will be able to prove, thanks to the encrypted data, that the rights to the NFT – the work belongs to him.

 

The new sphere is not yet regulated in Ukraine, which raises many legal issues.

 

On February 17, 2022, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted Law of Ukraine No. 2074-IX “On Virtual Assets”. The law will enter into force only after amendments are made to the Tax Code of Ukraine regarding the taxation of transactions with virtual assets. The new law introduces the concepts of “digital currency”, “digital financial assets”, utilitarian digital rights.

But NFT cannot be called cryptocurrency or digital currency in its pure form. Such tokens cannot be used to pay for anything, they can be called a digital financial asset. A person buys a unique virtual object or a digital certificate for a unique object in the real world.

Thus, according to current legislation, NFT should be perceived as a right to other property, since NFT is an expression of a right to an object of intellectual property.

 

According to experts, from the point of view of law, it is no different from the art market, but it has its own specifics from the point of view of the turnover of digital assets. Therefore, provisions on digital rights and provisions on objects of intellectual property rights and circulation of things should be applied to NFTs in Ukraine.

 

At the same time, everything is often simpler in foreign law. For example, in the USA, tokens are classified according to their economic essence: if a token is used to pay for a product, it is a cryptocurrency; if the token gives corporate rights, it is a share; if the token provides some service, it is a service (utility), if the token, such as NFT, refers to a picture, then it will be considered as a combination of copyright, exclusive right and the thing itself (a picture in a frame or a “digital” frame) .

 

It is worth noting that the popularity of NFT art is growing rapidly. According to Business Insider, only in the 3rd quarter of 2021, the volume of trades in the works of crypto-artists exceeded $6 billion.

 

Sources:
https://metahistory.gallery/warline
https://t.me/zedigital/1459
https://www.theverge.com/22310188/nft-explainer-what-is-blockchain-crypto-art-faq
https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/2074-20#Text

In the USA, Winnie the Pooh has become a public domain

Since this year, the Winnie-the-Pooh character has become public domain in the United States. Its copyright has expired. According to US law, after 95 years, copyright protection for official works ceases, i.e. works that were created by the author as a result of the performance of official tasks. This means that from now on, anyone in the United States has the right to republish Alan Milne’s famous book about Winnie the Pooh, without obtaining permission from the copyright holders and without paying a license fee. Also, derivative works – audiovisual (films and cartoons), stage works, computer games, etc. – can be created without permission.
 

The character of Winnie the Pooh was one of the most profitable for the Disney studio, in the last decades the company’s annual income from its use was between 3 and 6 billion dollars. Of course, there have always been many controversies and lawsuits surrounding Winnie the Pooh, and not only in the US.
 

In general, it all began in 1926, when Alan Milne’s first Winnie the Pooh book was published. In 1929, the literary agent Stephen Slesinger bought the rights to commercial use of the image of Winnie the Pooh. In the 1960s, the heirs transferred these rights to the Walt Disney Company, which agreed to pay the Slesinger family a portion of the profits from sales of products created using the character. This is how cartoons, toys and souvenirs began to bring in multibillion-dollar revenues. In 1991, the Slesingers filed a lawsuit, accusing the Disney company of underpayment of the appropriate remuneration – as the lawyers claimed, the bear became more profitable for the company than another famous character – Mickey Mouse. The Slesingers not only asked the court to collect compensation in the hundreds of millions of dollars, but also to deprive Walt Disney of the rights to use the character in the United States. In turn, the company insisted that, according to the contract, the rights of the Slesingers extended only to certain types of products for which Disney paid royalties in full, and to revenues from other types of products (for example, computer games, videos) the Slesingers did not can claim
 

According to lawyers, the plaintiffs would have some chance of success if they acted within the law. But to prove their point, the Slesingers hired private detectives who stole some documents from Disney’s headquarters. The Los Angeles Superior Court Judge found this outrageous and punished the plaintiffs by simply dismissing their case. The ruling stated that the plaintiffs “acted dishonestly and showed no signs of remorse.” Thus, Walt Disney won the court, defending the exclusive rights to the character. Although many critics and fans of Alan Milne’s work believe that the Disney adaptation is very far from the original character of the books and not for the better.
 

In addition to the rights to the character, Disney at one time acquired the rights to the drawings of “Classic Pooh” from their author, Ernest Shepard, which he created while working with Alan Milne for Punch magazine, and which became the first illustrations for the bear story.
 

Winnie the Pooh and Soyuzmultfilm

“Soyuzmultfilm” did not apply for permission to use the character either to the Schlesingers or to Disney, which had exclusive rights to the film adaptation and the drawn image of “Classic Pooh”. The visual image of the Soviet cartoon Winnie the Pooh was created by production designers Eduard Nazarov and Volodymyr Zuykov.
 

In general, from the very beginning, this story began with the writer-translator Borys Zakhoder. Once he was looking at a children’s English encyclopedia in the library, saw a picture of a cute teddy bear in it and was eager to read a book about him. Thus began his many years of work with Pooh. Boris Zakhoder’s manuscript translation was not accepted for a long time, but he managed to publish a book that became incredibly popular in the USSR. B. Zahoder always emphasized that his book is not a literal translation, but a retelling of Milne’s books, which corresponds to reality. In addition, not all chapters of A. Milne’s book were included in B. Zahoder’s book.
 

The cartoon adaptation in the USSR was made by the director of “Soyuzmultfilm” Fyodor Khitruk, who wrote the script for Winnie the Pooh together with Boris Zakhoder. There were frequent disagreements in their work together, which led to the termination of the series after only three cartoons. But even the cycle that was released became incredibly popular. According to the director, he did not know about the existence of the Disney series when he created his cartoons. And it was precisely the fact that the Soviet cartoons about Winnie the Pooh were created without obtaining the rights to screenplay from Walt Disney that made it impossible to show them abroad.
 

The plot and characters of the American and Soviet Winnie the Pooh are still being compared. Among the advantages of the American one is a higher quality drawing, but the Soviet one is considered more funny and unique. And thanks to the songs to the music of the composer Mechyslav Weinberg, Winnie the Pooh is considered the first cartoon rapper
 

Court disputes over Winnie the Pooh were not only at Disney in the USA, but also at Soyuzmultfilm. In 2017-2018. The Court of Intellectual Rights in Moscow considered the dispute over the claim of the Alvega company against Rospatent and Soyuzmultfilm about the refusal to register a trademark with the image of Winnie the Pooh. The position of the plaintiff, “Alvega” LLC, was based on the fact that the company received permission to use the images directly from the authors, artists E.Nazarov and V.Zuykov. But the court agreed with the position of Rospatent and Soyuzmultfilm, noting that it was necessary to obtain permission from the film studio to use the character and individual drawings and frames from the cartoon. In turn, the right holder, Soyuzmultfilm, is obliged to pay remuneration to authors for the use of animated films created by them.
 

Borys Zakhoder’s rights were also contested in court. The lawsuit was filed by the company “Nova Alternativa”, which owns the trademark “Vinni”. She stated that the writer had no rights, since he, in turn, did not receive the right to adapt the work from Alan Milne and did not enter into a contract with A. A. Milne, the publisher, or another owner of the exclusive copyright for the original work “Winnie the Pooh “. The plaintiffs asked to recognize that B. Zakhoder does not have copyright for the designations “Vinny” and “Winny”, since, in their opinion, these designations were not the result of Boris Zakhoder’s creative activity.
 

The court established that the copyright for the work and the word designation “Vinny” belong to Boris Zahoder, who made the original translation of A. Milne’s work. The character of B. Zahoder is not an exact copy of the character of A. Milne and has certain original features. The name Vinnie with the double letter “nn” was introduced into the vocabulary of the Russian language by Boris Zakhoder and is the original translation. On the territory of the Russian Federation, the word “Vinny” evokes an association with the character of B. Zahoder’s fairy tale.
 

The court also noted that at the time of creation of B.V. Author of the Russian-language version of the work by A.A. The Fundamentals of copyright of the USSR dated May 16, 1928 were effective for Milna. The Soviet Union did not participate in international treaties on the protection of copyright, the works of foreign authors were freely used, and their consent was not required for translation or other creative processing of the work. Thus, the court established that the creation of B.V. The authoring of the literary work “Winnie-the-Pooh and everything-everything-everything” was carried out in accordance with the legislation in force at that time.
 

Interesting facts about Winnie the Pooh

Books and movies about Winnie the Pooh have been translated into 29 languages.
 

A Winnie the Pooh star was unveiled on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006.
 

Winnie the Pooh is depicted on postage stamps of about 20 countries.
 

In the Forbes list, the character of Winnie the Pooh takes second place after the character of Mickey Mouse.
 

The sale of a drawing by Ernest Shepard – a map of the Hundred Acre Forest, where Winnie the Pooh and other characters walked, set a world record – the sketch was sold at London Sotheby’s for almost half a million pounds.
 

Ernest Shepard was a famous cartoonist and worked for Punch magazine for about 30 years. At first, Alan Milne was skeptical about the prospects of cooperation with this artist, but as a result, the cooperation took place. Shepard made more than 300 illustrations for books about bears.
 

Winnie the Pooh became a kind of creative “curse” for Alan Milne: despite the fact that he is the author of 8 novels, 34 plays, 5 documentary books and 15 short stories, readers perceived and continue to perceive him exclusively as a children’s writer.
 
The image for the creation of Winnie the Pooh and all his friends was soft toys that belonged to Alan Milne’s son – Christopher Robin. At the same time, Christopher Robin himself had a negative attitude towards Disney animation. After the screen adaptation, he became an object of ridicule from the students of the school. Christopher Robin didn’t like the fact that he was still a little boy from his father’s books. Following in his father’s footsteps, Christopher Robin wrote several memoirs: “Enchanted Places”, “After Winnie the Pooh” and “The Hole in the Hill”. In one of them he says: “Sometimes it seems to me that my father has reached the heights of popularity by climbing on my childish shoulders, that he has taken away my good name, leaving me nothing but empty fame.” This is a lifelong family conflict.
 

Thanks to the translations of Boris Zahoder, Soviet children got to know not only Winnie the Pooh, but also “Alice in Wonderland”, “Mary Poppins”, “Peter Pan”. Commenting on the question: “Why exactly was “Winnie the Pooh” such a success?”, B. Zahoder’s wife answered: “Boris gave the characters traits that Alan Milne himself did not see in them.”
 

List of works that have entered the public domain in the United States since January 1, 2022

In addition to Alan Milne’s book Winnie the Pooh, the list of works that have become public domain also includes Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, silent films starring Greta Garbo and Buster Keaton, opera recordings Enrico Caruso, made before 1923, and others.
 

A complete list is available on the Duke University website.
 

We do not analyze or evaluate the above. All presented information is taken from open sources and reflects the facts and opinions of individuals. If you have any questions regarding the rights to use works, our experts will always answer them. To do this, you need to fill out the return application form on our website.
 

Sources:
https://delo.ua/leisure/vinni-pux-stal-obshhestvennym-dostoyaniem-srok-avtorskix-prav-na-nego-i-desyatki-izvestnyx-proizvedenii-istek-390894/
https://www.fd.ru/articles/66016-vinni-puh-i-prava-cheloveka
 

Published: 01/28/2022

On December 15, 2021, the Law of Ukraine “On Mediation”, which the legal community has been waiting for for many years, entered into force.

In Ukraine, mediation began to be used since the mid-2000s, but until now there were still open questions that determine the status of a mediator, the procedure for his preparation, the mediation procedure, and the rights of the parties.

Mediation (not to be confused with meditation!) is an out-of-court, voluntary and confidential procedure in which the parties, with the participation of a trained independent mediator (mediator), try to resolve the conflict through negotiations.

Mediation is used as an alternative way of resolving family, civil and business disputes and for conciliation in some criminal cases.

What are the advantages of mediation?
• Affordable cost of the procedure compared to resolving the dispute in court or through arbitration and arbitration.
• Quick resolution of the conflict.
• Voluntary participation.
• Initiating mediation at any stage of negotiations or litigation. The norms of the new Law on Mediation provide that in the event of successful mediation of a dispute that is already in court, 60% of the paid court fee will be returned to the relevant party in the court proceedings by the court.
• Confidentiality of negotiations.
• Professional search for a compromise solution.

A case of the successful application of mediation in the field of intellectual property can be shared by our manager, Nataliya Lemeshchuk, who obtained the specialty of mediator at the Ukrainian Academy of Mediation.

A dispute arose between the owner of a well-known trademark and the owner of an online store, which illegally used this trademark on its website, as well as in the domain name. The parties refused to go to court and decided to settle the dispute voluntarily. The process took place in the form of “shuttle” mediation (individual meetings and communication from each of the parties in turn), at the final stage the parties met and signed the agreement. In this case, the parties were accompanied at the post-mediation stage (monitoring of the implementation of the agreement). As a result, instead of the usual multi-year confrontation, with large financial costs, the parties peacefully resolved the dispute and agreed on a partnership for the future.

This is the main advantage of mediation – a quick and civilized way of resolving the conflict, finding a solution that suits both parties, saving financial means and personal resources, in the complete absence of image losses, the procedure is confidential and not subject to disclosure.