Features of trademark expertise with religious symbols

Earlier we wrote about the legislator's plans to amend the Civil Code of the Russian Federation in the part concerning the registration of trademarks with religious symbols. This initiative was expected, since in fact the agency often refused to register such designations if they contradicted religious dogmas, could offend the feelings of believers or otherwise violate moral principles (for more details, see the article "Trademarks: Funny and Not So Funny").

However, in practice, such refusals gave rise to many disputes, since they were based on evaluation categories, the interpretation of which was initially left to the discretion of the registering authority. For example, disputes arose regarding the qualification of designation elements as religious or about goods for which it was allowed to register a designation with such elements.

As a result, Federal Law No. 190-FZ of July 22, 2024 on amendments to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation was adopted, and paragraph 1 of Article 1499 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation was supplemented with a new paragraph, in which the agency was empowered to establish the specifics of conducting an examination of a designation with religious symbols (semantics). Amendments to the law entered into force on October 21, 2024, and from the same date, corresponding changes to the Rules for drafting, filing and reviewing documents that are the basis for performing legally significant actions for state registration of trademarks (hereinafter referred to as the Rules) entered into force.

In particular, the Rules contain a list of objects that are considered religious, and also approve the specifics of conducting an examination of signs with religious elements.

Which elements of the mark are considered religious?

A designation is considered to contain religious symbols (semantics) if it contains any of the following elements:

• image of a religious object;
• religious symbol;
• words that have a religious focus;
• images and names of deities or other persons revered by believers.

Procedure for the expertise of "religious" marks

The main feature of the examination is the procedure for coordinating the designation with religious organizations, which is carried out as follows:

1. Rospatent, within five working days from the date of acceptance of the application for consideration as a result of the formal examination, sends information about the application to the Interreligious Council of Russia;
2. The agency suspends consideration of the application until it receives the conclusion of the Interreligious Council, but for no more than one month from the date of sending information about the application;
3. In turn, the Interreligious Council considers the declared designation, involving centralized religious organizations whose interests may be affected in the event of its registration. Based on the results of the review, the Council sends to Rospatent an advisory opinion on the possibility or impossibility of registering the declared designation as a trademark. Moreover, if the opinion contains a recommendation on the impossibility of registering the designation, Rospatent is obliged to send a copy of the opinion to the applicant within five working days;
4. Rospatent takes into account the conclusion of the Interreligious Council when making a decision on the application. However, it does not take it into account if the conclusion was received by the agency after the decision was made. The relevant information is reflected in the conclusion of the examination of the declared designation.

On our part, we believe that introducing criteria for classifying a mark as "religious" and involving representatives of confessions in the application approval process will significantly reduce the number of disputes related to the denial of registering such trademarks. Time will tell how this innovation will be implemented in practice.