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Унификация института компенсации в сфере интеллектуальной собственности: готовимся к изменениям
The adoption of Federal Law No. 214-FZ dated July 7, 2025 "On Amendments to Part Four of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation" was the result of the special attention of the Government of the Russian Federation to improving the efficiency of the use of intellectual property in a market economy by, firstly, creating favorable conditions for the activities of participants in civil turnover, and secondly, simplifying and speeding up the resolution of conflict situations and court proceedings. The successful use of the results of intellectual activity and means of individualization in civil turnover should be accompanied by a variety of ways to protect and protect the rights of copyright holders who are parties to contracts and torts, which should ensure the stability and transparency of civil law relations arising in the process of turnover of goods containing intellectual property objects. Therefore, the state must maintain a balance of public and private interests that ensure civil law and order in the country as a whole and in the field of creative industries in particular. Paying attention to the compensatory function of civil legislation, the author refers to the novel – Article 12521 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, which comes into force on January 4, 2026 and regulates the conditions and procedure for applying the institution of compensation for violation of exclusive rights. The significance of this novel is confirmed by the fact that it provides the copyright holder with the opportunity to choose a method of protection: to claim damages or compensation, which is especially important if it is problematic to prove the amount of damages. Compensation frees the copyright holder from the need to submit documents, including an expert opinion confirming the amount of damage caused, thereby speeding up the dispute resolution process. 12521 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation regulates in detail the grounds for compensation and the procedure for calculating its amount. These provisions deserve support and approval. At the same time, it should be recognized that the new article raises a number of practice-oriented issues, since P. 1 of this article contains a peremptory norm: compensation may be applied in cases stipulated by the Civil Code of the Russian Federation for certain types of intellectual property results or means of individualization, i.e. breeders (art. 1446) or right holders of know-how (paragraph 1 of art. 1472) cannot use compensation as a way to protect the violated exclusive right! The question arises – why? After all, the freedom to choose a method of protection under common law provides the subject with such an opportunity (art. 1). The situation is also aggravated by the following provision of the same paragraph: "for certain types of intellectual property results or means of individualization ... compensation may be collected for actions that do not violate the exclusive right, but contributed to such a violation" (emphasis ours – V.S.). In our opinion, such a selective attitude of the legislator to the rights to Intellectual property objects can be classified as discrimination that needs to be eliminated.