Contemporary Ukrainian intellectual property law

Ukraine’s modern intellectual property regime is a moving target: it is being re-engineered in the midst of war to meet the standards of the European Union and the World Intellectual Property Organization, while remaining fully compliant with the WTO TRIPS Agreement. The result is a framework that is broadly aligned with international norms, although still uneven in enforcement and institutional practice. Here we sketch the legal architecture and the principal points of convergence and divergence with international standards, and note where further work is expected as Kyiv advances toward EU membership.

Ukraine is party to the cornerstone global treaties. She belongs to the Paris and Berne Unions, the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), the Madrid System for trade marks, and the Hague System for industrial designs. She has acceded to the Patent Law Treaty and the Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks, and most recently joined the Marrakesh Treaty facilitating access to copyrighted works for the visually impaired, which entered into force for Ukraine in September 2023. These memberships anchor formal compliance with the international baseline and provide practical channels for foreign and domestic right-holders to obtain and manage protection across borders. 

Since the EU–Ukraine Association Agreement entered fully into force in 2017, the country has been approximating her laws to the EU acquis, including the intellectual property chapter and its annexes on geographical indications and enforcement. A dedicated EU–Ukraine Sub-Committee on Geographical Indications supervises mutual protection of listed names; thousands of EU geographical indications now enjoy protection in Ukraine, while Ukrainian wine indications are recognised in the EU. This is a significant alignment step beyond the TRIPS baseline, because the EU’s geographical indication regime is both broader and more exacting than the minimum standards in TRIPS. 

Copyright has undergone the most conspicuous reform. A new Law on Copyright and Related Rights entered into force on 1 January 2023. It updates Ukrainian law for the digital environment and is expressly intended to mirror core elements of EU directives, including those reforming online content-sharing and collective management. The reform modernises exceptions and limitations, strengthens the position of authors and performers, and clarifies the liability of digital intermediaries. Further refinement of collective management organisations and royalty distribution remains a Commission priority, but the legislative trajectory is clearly toward EU practice. 

Industrial property has also been tightened. Amendments to the Law on Protection of Rights to Inventions and Utility Models have replaced the old patent-term extension approach with supplementary protection mechanisms consistent with the Association Agreement. More recently, Ukraine introduced a statutory “Bolar” research exemption for pharmaceuticals, bringing her much closer to EU norms on generic entry and regulatory data timing. For international filers, the PCT Applicant’s Guide confirms the procedural interfaces between the PCT and Ukrainian examination, an important operational detail for compliance in practice. 

Trade marks and designs are largely in step with international systems, thanks to the Madrid and Hague routes. Alignment with the EU acquis continues on matters such as bad-faith filings, administrative opposition, and grounds for invalidation. The Commission urges further work on trade secrets and on making specialised IP adjudication fully operational, to mirror the depth of EU remedies and case management. 

Enforcement is the area where international compliance is most often tested in practice. Ukraine’s statutory framework for civil, administrative and criminal measures is broadly compatible with EU law and TRIPS, including injunctions, damages, border measures and penalties. Yet the Commission and Ukraine’s own IP office acknowledge that piracy and counterfeit flows remain a problem, Ukraine being identified as a transit route into the EU; improving customs risk profiling, market surveillance, and cooperation with EU bodies is therefore an explicit reform priority. The planned specialised High IP Court has long been discussed; making it operational is viewed in Brussels as part of strengthening remedies and predictability. 

Geographical indications illustrate both progress and unfinished business. Under the Association Agreement’s GI lists and committee decisions, enforcement tools exist and protection is recognised; however, domestic uptake of Ukrainian GIs is still modest compared with the EU’s mature system. Continued capacity-building for producer groups and administrative bodies is required to realise the full economic value of GI protection. 

War conditions have complicated otherwise steady approximation. Martial law, budgetary constraints and the re-prioritisation of state capacity affect court functioning, inspections and border work. Nonetheless Kyiv has continued to legislate and to implement institutional reforms through the National Intellectual Property Authority, and to publish regular digests of alignment steps tied to EU negotiations. The strategic direction is unambiguous: closer convergence with EU enforcement practice, better governance of collective management, and harmonisation of pharmaceutical and patent rules to EU standards. 

In sum, judged against the global yardstick of TRIPS and the network of WIPO treaties, Ukraine is compliant and engaged. Measured against the higher bar of the EU acquis that she has chosen to adopt, Ukraine has already delivered major legislative reforms—copyright, patents, pharmaceuticals, geographical indications—and offers reliable international filing routes. The remaining gaps are chiefly in execution: consistent enforcement against piracy and counterfeiting, the effectiveness and transparency of collective management, and the full activation of specialised adjudication. If Kyiv sustains the current legislative and institutional momentum, the country’s IP system will not merely comply with international standards; it will converge on the more demanding European model that Ukraine seeks to join.