Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, Dear colleagues!
Indeed, the Russian economy continues to grow. According to Rosstat’s preliminary estimate, GDP growth in the third quarter is 5.5 percent in annual terms. In comparable prices, retail trade turnover increased by eleven percent over the same period, so this is an increase based on our domestic demand.
It is based on consumer activity, which is supported by growing production volumes. Our companies have accumulated enough competencies to replace the products of Western colleagues and increase the production of their own products. And of course, in order to consolidate these vacant niches, they need to create, display and protect their own brands, which they do.
At the moment, Rospatent has registered a total of 860 thousand trademarks in the country. And as you noted, Russian companies and citizens already own more than half of them, to be precise – 490 thousand. Moreover, over the past year and a half, the number of such signs that belong to our companies has grown by more than a third.
This year, out of the total number of applications received by Rospatent, 85 percent are from companies with a Russian residence permit. The most actively registered brands of clothing and footwear, software, pharmaceuticals, household chemicals, perfumes and cosmetics, confectionery and bakery products.
At the same time, Rosaccreditation data confirm that the growth in the number of Russian trademarks is accompanied by an increase in their production in the country. This year, there are two thousand more Russian manufacturers who have certified goods – those that are subject to certification, which is plus 18 percent.
These are light industry products – the number of manufacturers has increased by 80 percent, goods for children and teenagers – by one and a half times, children’s toys – by 20 percent, furniture – by 30 percent. These are the companies that have not submitted for product certification before, but this year they came, and new manufacturers appeared. That is, these are not only brands, because there may be brands, sometimes they also use production in other countries – it is important that this is also Russian production.
To maintain the positive dynamics, the Government has expanded the list of trademark support tools. Starting this year, any citizen has the opportunity to register a trademark – before that, only companies and individual entrepreneurs could. Now we have self-employed people who supply products to marketplaces, who use it very actively.
In less than five months since the beginning of the law, five thousand applications have been received from the self-employed, including Rospatent has shortened the deadlines and has already registered the first 50 trademarks. Registration has been going on for four months, so we are just waiting for mass registration from those who have applied in the near future.
The cooperation of manufacturers in the regions will also play an increasingly important role in the development of the brand in Russia. To do this, at the initiative of the Federation Council – Valentina Ivanovna Matvienko personally oversees this issue – the regulation of regional brands was changed.
A new type of intellectual property – geographical indication – has been legislated. This allows manufacturers of the same type of products in the region to unite and together promote the brand and protect the trademark.
For example, “Tula gingerbread”, “Vologda lace”, “Orenburg down shawl”, “Krasnodar tea”, “Dymkovsky toy”. In total, Rospatent has already registered more than 320 regional brands. The leading regions are here: Krasnodar Krai – 27 brands, Stavropol Krai – 14, Tula Region and Moscow Region – nine brands each.
What tasks are we setting for brand development next?
Firstly, it is very important for us to encourage companies to use a trademark as an economic asset, that is, to evaluate it, invest in it, protect it.
To help companies, a new federal intellectual property valuation standard and a new federal accounting standard were approved last year.
Here I want to thank my colleagues from the Ministry of Finance, who, with all the variety of issues, pay such attention to these issues, too.
According to the tax service, by the end of 2022, the volume of intangible assets on the balance sheet of Russian companies, including trademarks, amounted to almost 15 trillion rubles. The growth over the past year is 60 percent. Therefore, there is some share of this work.
The second point. We help Russian regional brands to enter foreign markets. To do this, we have carried out work and joined international agreements, the Lisbon Agreement, and now with one application it is possible to register our regional brands in several jurisdictions.
We have the first such application – for international registration – received from the association “Gzhel” from the Moscow region, which produces well-known products. Registration is currently underway in foreign patent offices, all applications have been sent there.
I will separately note the role of the regions and the large request for this work. Together with the Federation Council, we have developed recommendations on the management of intellectual property rights in the regions. Agreements were concluded with 14 of the most proactive. Rospatent trains their employees to protect and commercialize intellectual property rights.
And of course, a separate vector of work is the identification and promotion of the best brands. We have many authorities working on this track: the Ministry of Industry and Trade – I will note here separately, Rospatent, the SME Corporation, the My Business network of centers.
On our platforms, we also promote courses in advertising, marketing, and brand registration. Starting next year, we will include brands from new regions in the perimeter of this work. We also understand that this is a separate task of integration into a single space.
Separately, the initiative of colleagues from the Agency for Strategic Initiatives deserves special attention and support. Colleagues have been holding a competition for the best brands since last year, revealing the most interesting and original, vivid stories. This, of course, gives a powerful impetus to the whole story.
Therefore, Mr President, we will continue to keep this issue under control. Indeed, we consider regional brands as a way, including long-term consolidation of Russian manufacturers in our market.
Thank you.
