Intellectual Property

The national system for protecting and managing intellectual property in the Republic of Belarus includes the following bodies:

  • State Committee on Science and Technology;
  • National Center of Intellectual Property;
  • divisions in charge of protecting and managing intellectual property in government agencies, scientific and industrial organizations, higher education institutions;
  • the judicial board on intellectual property cases of the Supreme Court, the Internal Affairs Ministry, the Investigative Committee, and the State Customs Committee that work to protect intellectual property rights;
  • patent attorneys and appraisers of intellectual property objects and proprietary rights to them.
The legislation of the Republic of Belarus in intellectual property has been drafted with assistance of the World Intellectual Property Organization taking into account international standards.

The main provisions are stipulated by:

  • the Civil Code;
  • the law on trademarks and service marks of 5 February 1993;
  • the law on patents on plant varieties of 13 April 1995;
  • the law on the legal protection of topologies of integral microchips of 7 December 1998;
  • the law on geographical indications of 17 July 2002;
  • the law on patents on inventions, utility models, and pre-production prototypes of 16 December 2002;
  • the law on copyright and allied rights of 17 May 2011.

Belarus is party to bilateral international agreements on intellectual property rights as well as multilateral international agreements of the WIPO, the CIS, and the EAEU. Since 1995 Belarus has been a member of the Eurasian Patent Organization, which allows members to protect their inventions in eight countries simultaneously.

The key measures to develop the national intellectual property system are implemented in accordance with the national intellectual property strategy for 2012-2020.

The number of registered industrial property rights protected in the Republic of Belarus according to national, regional, and international procedures grows every year. As of January 2019, there were more than 127,000 active trademarks in the Republic of Belarus.

The intellectual property market develops rapidly. About 3,000 contracts with respect to industrial property rights have been registered since 2016. Export in the field of intellectual property use fees has tripled since 2016 and is now close to $100 million.