moscow Legalizing Theft of Brands: russia Is Preparing a Mechanism for Seizing Foreign Intellectual Property

russian authorities are close to what international lawyers are already openly calling institutionalized theft of intellectual property. deputy prime minister aleksandr novak has announced that the ministry of economic development, together with rospatent, is working on a mechanism for “external temporary management” of patents, trademarks, and other IP objects of foreign companies from “unfriendly” countries – the same ones that left russia’s market after the rf’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In simple terms, the state will appoint an “administrator” who, without the consent of IKEA, Apple, or any other company, will be able to issue licenses to russian manufacturers to use their brands and technologies.

russia already has a mechanism for compulsory licensing of patents through the courts, which is mainly used in the pharmaceutical industry and formally fits within the narrow framework of the WTO TRIPS agreement. The new plan goes much further: it covers trademarks, software, and media content, i.e., precisely those categories of IP where value is determined not by technology but by reputation and consumer trust.

There are virtually no analogues to this mechanism in global practice. And this is no coincidence. No country that aspires to participate in the global economy practices this, because the consequences for the investment climate would be catastrophic.

From the point of view of international law, the proposed scheme is problematic on several levels. russia remains a formal participant in the Berne and Paris Conventions. TRIPS allows compulsory licensing only in exceptional circumstances, exclusively for the domestic market and with the payment of “adequate compensation”. However, the proposed mechanism does not provide for any of these conditions.

The issue of trademarks is a separate problem. A trademark is not just a logo; it is a guarantee of the quality and origin of a product. When someone else starts manufacturing under the brand name of a well-known company, it is not only a violation of the owner’s rights, but also a direct deception of the consumer.

The rights-holding companies will not stand idly by. Goods produced under such “licenses” will be vulnerable to legal action in any jurisdiction where they end up. The seizure of russian companies’ assets in Europe and the USA for IP rights violations is a very real scenario. There are already precedents after 2022.

The kremlin will obviously position this move as a symmetrical response to the West’s freezing of russian assets. But this logic has a fundamental flaw: the seizure of assets is a consequence of aggression, not its cause. Stealing the brands of the victims of its own war is unlikely to look convincing even in neutral jurisdictions.

The most ironic thing is that this mechanism could permanently close the door to the return of foreign companies, which some russian officials still declare desirable. No serious player will enter a market where the state is capable of appointing an “administrator” for its trademark at any moment.

russia is consciously choosing the path of a final rejection of international norms in the field of IP, in addition to what has already been done in energy, finance, and security. This is not just a legal anomaly. It is a conscious choice of economic isolation, formalized in the form of a legal mechanism.

rospatent promises to present the specific parameters of the scheme by mid-2026. By that time, the international community will have another reason to be convinced that the rules that are binding on everyone else are considered optional by moscow.