The amendments to Georgia’s Law on Border Measures Related to intellectual property entered into force on December 30, 2011, introducing significant changes in the customs surveillance procedure.
In accordance with the provisions of the amended law, the requests for entering IP objects into the Customs Register are to be filed by the rights holders or their representatives before the Georgian PTO (SAKPATENTI), and not with the Revenue Service within the Ministry of Finance of Georgia, as it was before the amendments. Such changes in the procedure allow the right holders to file requests for entering IP objects into the Customs Register when filling applications for the same IP objects before the PTO. Thus, as soon as the protection for an IP object is granted, the object is automatically entered into the Customs Register as SAKPATENTI sends the notification to the Revenue Service.
Another major change is that the term of consideration of a request has been reduced from one month to five working days. Thus, SAKPATENTI is to issue the decision on the registration of an IP object in the Customs Register or on refusal of the same within five working days after the receipt of the request from the right holder.
The list of documents supporting the request has also been simplified. Now the right holders are not obliged to file IP rights certificates (certified copies or duplicates), since SAKPATENTI confirms validity of IP rights to the Revenue Service.
Elena Zubenko