On June 10, 2025, the Russian President signed a law that substantially amends Part Four of the Russian Civil Code as regards compensation for breach of exclusive rights (the “Law”). The Law aims to implement decrees of the Russian Constitutional Court and is intended to create a more fair and predictable mechanism for recovering compensation for violation of exclusive rights.

The Law clarifies what exactly should be deemed a violation of exclusive rights and gives the courts new tools for determining the amount of compensation, especially in cases where one action violates the rights to several intellectual property objects (“IPOs”).

 

MAIN CHANGES

The key changes are given in systemic form in the new Article 1252¹ of the Civil Code, which becomes the central norm regulating the general questions of recovering compensation for breach of exclusive rights to an IPO, namely:

 

1. Change in rules for calculating compensation for committing several breaches or using a “single breach” and exceptions from these rules

The Law expressly states that unlawful use of one IPO in one manner constitutes a single breach (Clause 1¹ Article 1252 of the Civil Code) for which compensation can be claimed.

At the same time, there are several new exceptions to this rule:

1. One compensation for several IPOs: the law expressly stipulates that unlawful use of several IPOs in one counterfeit material carrier (now this is goods on which an IPO is placed unlawfully) has an impact on the amount of compensation, and the degree of such impact depends on the manner of calculation elected (Clause 4 Article 1252¹of the Civil Code):

• When calculating the specific amount of compensation, a single compensation is to be collected, and if rights in respect to different IPOs are violated, the greater values of the minimum and maximum compensation amounts are to be taken.

Example: If goods unlawfully use a copyright object (compensation from 10,000 to 10,000,000 rubles) and a utility model patent (compensation from 50,000 to 10,000,000 rubles), the court will be obligated to use the compensation amount for a utility model. At the same time, if a single item of goods uses two copyright objects, compensation can be recovered only in the amount from 10,000 to 10,000,000 rubles.

• When calculating compensation that is several times the cost of the counterfeit goods, now the type of IPO used is taken into account, namely:
  • If counterfeit goods unlawfully use IPOs that are not copyright objects, the amount of compensation must be no less than one time the cost and no more than two times the cost of the illegal goods. Example: If the same counterfeit goods that cost 100 rubles use two trademarks and one utility model patent, the amount of compensation can be from 100 to 200 rubles.
  • If counterfeit goods unlawfully use IPOs that are not copyright objects, the amount of compensation must be no less than one time the cost and no more than two times the cost of the illegal goods. Example: If a counterfeit T-shirt that costs 100 rubles uses two personages which are additionally registered as trademarks, the amount of compensation can be from 150 to 220 rubles.
  • If counterfeit goods unlawfully use IPOs that are copyright objects, the amount of compensation must be no less than 150% of the cost and no more that 220% of the cost of the illegal goods. Example: If a counterfeit T-shirt that costs 100 rubles uses two personages which are additionally registered as trademarks, the amount of compensation can be from 150 to 220 rubles.

• When calculating compensation that is several times the cost of the right to use an IPO, now the type of IPO used is taken into account, namely:
  • If counterfeit goods unlawfully use IPOs that are not copyright objects, the amount of compensation must be no less than one time the cost of the greater of all the rights to the IPO that is unlawfully used in such illegal material carrier, and no more than two times the cost of such right. Example: If the same counterfeit goods use a trademark whose legal use costs 100 rubles and a utility model patent whose legal use costs 200 rubles, the amount of compensation can be from 200 to 400 rubles.[1]
  • If counterfeit goods unlawfully use IPOs that are copyright objects, the amount of compensation must be no less than 150% and no more that 220% of the cost of the right to use the copyright objects. Example: If the same counterfeit goods use a trademark whose legal use costs 100 rubles and a copyright object whose legal use costs 200 rubles, the amount of compensation can be from 200 to 440 rubles.

NB:  At the same time, this norm does not contain an indication of the need to apply the cost of use of the more “expensive” IPO, which could lead to the cost of using a copyright object being applied even if other IPOs with greater cost of use are used in the goods:

Example: If the same counterfeit goods use a trademark whose legal use costs 100 rubles and a copyright object whose legal use costs 50 rubles, the amount of compensation can be from 75 to 110 rubles.

Please note that these norms are to be used only if IPOs are used in counterfeit goods.

We therefore believe that they will not be applied in cases where IPOs are not used in goods (for example, if IPOs are used when providing services or on the Internet), or in respect to goods which were imported into Russia as parallel import. At the same time, we cannot rule out the risk of adverse court practice forming against parallel importers.

1. Several violations – one compensation: the court will have the right to recognize several cases of unlawful use of IPOs by one entity to be one violation (Clause 5 Article 1252¹ of the Civil Code).

Example: Transportation and subsequent sale of counterfeit goods, reproduction of a copyright object and its dissemination.

 

2.  New powers for the courts

One of the most significant new aspects is the substantial expansion of a court's powers when determining the method for calculating compensation.

Under the rules previously in effect, if the rightholder could not justify precisely enough the method of calculation they elected (for example, could not prove the cost of the right of use in order to recover twice its value), the court was obliged to deny the claim.

Now, however, if the court deems the calculation method elected by the rightholder to be inappropriate in the circumstances of the case, it is entitled to change it on its own initiative and to award compensation in a fixed amount (Clause 3 Article 1252¹ of the Civil Code).

This important change on one hand lowers the risk of full denial of a claim for rightholders, and on the other hand creates an ambiguity, since the Law does not set clear criteria for “inappropriateness.”  It is not yet clear in what cases the courts will make use of this norm, which increases the dependency of case outcome on the court's discretion.

One should also keep in mind that the flexibility of the court's discretion depends on the case circumstances, its commensurability to the scope and nature of the violation, as well as the need for reason and justice (moved from Clause 3 Article 1252 to Clause 2 Article 1252¹ of the Civil Code). Assessment of the violator's guilt (for more details see the next section) substantially expands the court's discretion when examining disputes on claims to collect compensation.

 

3. Accounting for culpability of the entrepreneur when determining compensation amounts

Under Clause 3 Article 1250 of the Civil Code, the liability measures provided for violation of exclusive rights must be used if the violator is culpable. At the same time, entrepreneurs are liable for a violation irrespective of guilt, and only a force majeure event can release them from liability.

That said, the Law provides a special new mechanism for lowering the liability for entrepreneurs. In case of a violation by a person engaged in entrepreneurial activity where the violator was not aware and was not required to be aware that they are committing a violation of an exclusive right, the court could determine the amount of compensation in the following decreased amounts (Clause 7 Article 1252¹ of the Civil Code):

• From 10,000 to 500,000 rubles when calculating compensation as a fixed amount;
• Limited to the amount being from one time to two times the cost of counterfeit goods or the right of use when electing the appropriate calculation method.

At the same time, there is the question of how realistic it is to prove a fact of “action without guilt” for a professional market player who could not be unaware of a publicly registered IPO (trademark, patent. And yet, considering the amount of the lower thresholds of compensation, there is a risk that this new element could make protecting exclusive rights in court inexpedient in these types of cases.

 

4.  Joint and several liability in a “chain” of violations

The Law expands the application of joint and several liability. Today it applies only to persons that committed a violation through jointly agreed actions (Clause 6.1 Article 1252 of the Civil Code).

There is now an opportunity to hold several persons jointly and severally liable if they committed a violation in respect to the same counterfeit carriers (for example, manufacturer → wholesaler → retail seller) even if their actions were not agreed (Clause 8 Article 1252¹ of the Civil Code).

• Joint and several liability is allowed only if holding each violator liable would cause unjust enrichment for the rightholder.
• Joint and several debtors have a subrogation right against other participants of the “chain” of violators, less the share each of them incurs, unless otherwise provided by the relations between the violators.
• If it is impossible to establish how much each of the joint and several violators contributed in the unfavorable consequences encountered by the rightholder, they are deemed to contribute in equal parts.
• If the rightholder and the licensee (under an exclusive license) are simultaneously attempting to recover compensation, their claims are deemed joint and several (Clause 2 Article 1254 of the Civil Code).

 

5. Changes in compensation amounts and calculation methods

The Law substantially changes the compensation amounts and calculation methods for most IPOs:

Article of the Civil Code	IPO	Old	New
Subclause  1 Clause 1 Article 1301	Copyright objects (copyright law)	10,000 – 5,000,000 rub.	10,000 – 10,000,000 rub.
Subclause 1 Article 1311	Associated rights (performances, soundtracks)	10,000 – 5,000,000 rub.	10,000 – 10,000,000 rub.
Subclause 1 Article 14061	Patents (inventions, utility models, industrial samples)	10,000 – 5,000,000 rub.	50,000 – 10,000,000 rub.
Subclause 1 Clause 4 Article 1515	Trademarks	10,000 – 5,000,000 rub. Alternative method for calculating compensation (Subclause   2 Clause 4 Article 1515): “two times the cost of goods which unlawfully bear a trademark”	10,000 – 10,000,000 rub. Alternative method for calculating compensation (Subclause 2 Clause 4 Article 1515): “two times the cost of counterfeit goods”
Clause 2 Article 1537	Geographical indications and apellations of origin	10,000 – 5,000,000 rub. Alternative method for calculating compensation (Subclause 2 Clause 2 Article 1537): “two times the cost of counterfeit goods which unlawfully bear a geographical indication or apellation of origin”	10,000 – 5,000,000 rub. The opportunity to collect compensation in the amount of two times the cost of counterfeit goods has been removed.

There is separate concern as to application of the norms on collecting “two times the cost of counterfeit goods” in cases with original goods brought into the country as part of parallel import without the rightholder's consent. If courts start to apply these norms, this will create for importers the risk of lawsuits with claims amounting to twice the value of the original product, which could seriously damage the institute of parallel import.

 

Other changes:

1. Compensation for aiding in violation of exclusive rights: compensation can be collected for actions which were not qualified as a violation, but which indirectly aided it (Paragraph 2 Clause 1 Article 1252¹ of the Civil Code)

The Law stipulates directly two such types of actions – circumvention of technical protection means (Clause 3 Article 1299 of the Civil Code) and deletion/change of copyright information (Clause 3 Article 1300 of the Civil Code). It remains to be seen whether this is an exhaustive list or if courts can use this norm in relation to other “aiding” actions.

2. Protection of rights to IPOs with several rightholders: it is stated directly that any rightholder or several of them can file for protection of rights to an IPO. In such a case, the rightholder who was successful in collecting compensation is obliged to distribute it among all the rightholders (Clause 6 Article 1252¹ of the Civil Code).

3. Right to an author's name: a clarification is made that if a copyright object is used freely (Article 1274) with indication of the source, but without the author's name (because it was not provided in the source), this is a violation of personal non-proprietary right to a name, rather than of an exclusive right (Clause 3 Article 1265).

4. Technical means of protecting copyright and information about authorship: clarification is made as to the amounts of compensation to be collected for circumventing technical protection means (Clause 3 Article 1299 of the Civil Code) and deletion of copyright information (Clause 3 Article 1300 of the Civil Code). In the first case it is 10,000 to 5,000,000 rubles, and in the second it is 1,000 to 100,000 rubles.

At the same time, the Law includes in Article 1301 of the Civil Code liability for a combined violation: if an exclusive right to a copyright object is violated, combined with deletion or change of copyright information, the overall amount of compensation can reach 11,000,000 rubles or 220% of the cost of counterfeit goods or right of use (Clause 2 Article 1301 of the Civil Code).

 

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN IN PRACTICE?

The main goal of the changes the lawmakers aimed at was to find a balance between protecting the interests of rightholders and preventing abuse, when violators encountered unjustified large amounts of compensation for violations that are formally multiple in number, but which are in essence homogeneous violations.

Court practice will show how successful this balance is, yet at the moment, it seems the Law in its current edition is ambiguous for rightholders and for violators alike. Even though the upper limit of the compensation amount has been raised, the court now has the right to defer from the calculation method elected by the plaintiff, which adds to the uncertainty.

Another problematic aspect is the issue of distributing compensation among different rightholders in the context of Clause 4 Article 1252¹ of the Civil Code. The Law does not state whether it is possible to split a single compensation collected for one counterfeit good if rights to different IPOs in this good belong to different persons who are in no way connected to each other, which creates grounds for future disputes among the rightholders themselves.

It is also unclear, given the new calculation rules for compensation for counterfeit goods (Clause 4 Article 1252¹ of the Civil Code), how the use of several IPOs needs to be assessed in respect to violations on the Internet, as opposed to use of material objects (for example, pictures with cartoon characters which are protected not just as copyright objects, but also as trademarks).

Formally, when using images on the Internet, there are no goods involved, therefore invoking the argument that the rules given in Clause 4 Article 1252¹ of the Civil Code do not apply to such violations, and there is no risk that a violator would be liable to pay “double” compensation – whether for violation of trademark rights or for violation of copyright.

 

FORECAST AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Summarizing all the above, it becomes apparent that the Law will entail substantial changes in the legal enforcement as regards liability for violation of exclusive rights.

The Law does not contain provisions for the transition period which would clarify issues of applying the new rules in respect to violations committed prior to the Law taking effect and those already being examined in court today.

The Law will take effect on January 4, 2026 (180 days after its official publication).

Despite the deferment of the Law taking effect, we recommend businesses to pay increased attention to the verification of contracting parties and legal “cleanliness” of supply chains in order to minimize the risks of joint and several liability if exclusive rights are violated. It is also important to keep up to date with the latest updates on online exclusive rights infringement and parallel import disputes.

We will continue to closely monitor the development of court practice on this issue and will be happy to provide the necessary assistance in assessing and addressing legal risks.

 

This review was prepared by the CLS intellectual property practice team: associate and Russian patent attorney Viktor Kaluzhsky and paralegal Maxim Kozodaev.

 

Additional information

Should any questions arise in connection with the above or if you need any additional materials, please contact the CLS office in St. Petersburg or Moscow.

This information letter keeps clients of CLS and other interested parties abreast of information that may, to some extent, affect their activity or cater to their interests. The opinions and commentaries expressed in this review shall not be deemed legal advice and do not cancel the need to obtain legal advice or legal opinion on separate issues.

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