The article is dedicated to the legal analysis of the peculiarities of enforcement proceedings when imposing a fine on a trademark. It has been established that the imposition of a fine on intellectual property rights to a trademark when imposing a fine is not regulated at the legislative level; neither the special legislation in the field of industrial property, in particular, the Law of Ukraine “On the Protection of Rights to Marks for Goods and Services”, nor the Law of Ukraine “On Enforcement Proceedings” contain any special norms that would determine the peculiarities of imposing a fine on objects of intellectual property rights in general, and on trademarks in particular. It has been established that the imposition of a fine is possible on intellectual property rights, objects of intellectual, creative activity. It has been proven that “persons whose intellectual property rights have been violated”, which are mentioned in Part 1 of Art. 14 of the Law of Ukraine «On Enforcement Proceedings», may act either as collectors under enforcement documents issued as a result of the consideration of the case in court for the forced execution of court decisions, or as victims within the framework of the consideration of criminal proceedings, under Articles 176, 177 and 229 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, cases of administrative offenses under Article 51-2 of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses. It is substantiated that during enforcement proceedings, enforcement may be applied specifically to the intellectual property rights to the trademark, and not to the trademark itself, since the trademark is an intangible object, the value of which is manifested precisely through the possession of property rights to it. It is proven that, guided by public information about trademarks owned by the debtor, a state / private enforcement agent may impose an arrest on intellectual property rights to a trademark and is obliged to notify IP office about this. It is proven that a state / private enforcement agent may make an official request to IP office to receive an additional official response about the debtor’s ownership of a certain trademark (in particular, information that the debtor is the owner of a Trademark Certificate). It is substantiated that, taking into account the value of intellectual property rights to a trademark, we can conclude that a state / private enforcement agent may implement the sale of the arrested property (intellectual property rights to a trademark) at electronic auctions, alienating a part of such intellectual property rights, the value of which corresponds to the amount of debt subject to collection within the framework of enforcement proceedings.
Леонід Тарасенко (Tue,) studied this question.