États-Unis d'Amérique

Fédération de Russie

Droit d'auteur et droits connexes

Additional Follow-Up to Question 3: This is likely a translation problem, but we would like to confirm our understanding of your explanation of Article 1232 and therefore will restate our previous question: Would a foreign author who enters a license contract have to register the license contract in Russia? If a foreign author does not register the license contract in Russia, what consequences, if any, would the failure to do so have on the validity of the license?

If in question 3 author is considered as citizen who created a work of science, literature or arts (object of copyright) by his creative work, it is necessary to take into consideration that the Civil Code of the Russian Federation (hereinafter – CC RF) does not require the state registration of the license contract under which the author or other rightholder of work provides or undertakes to provide the right to use this work to the other party. At the same time it should be borne in mind that the in CC RF the term "author" is used not only in relation to the authors of works (objects of copyright). The CC RF also establishes provisions for the authors of other results of intellectual activity, for example, the authors of Topographies of Integrated Circuits (Article 1450 of the CC RF). According to para 2 of Article 1460 of the CC RF, if the topology of integrated circuits has been registered in the Federal executive authority on intellectual property (Article 1452), a granting of right to use topology under a license contract shall be subject to state registration in the manner prescribed by Article 1232 of the CC RF. In this case, it is necessary to take into account para 6 of Article 1232 of the CC RF. This para stipulates that if the requirement of state registration of granting of right to use an integrated circuit layout to another person under a license contract was not met, the granting of right to use is considered invalid.