NIPA: Historical Background, Status, and Prospects for Legislative Regulation

The purpose of this study is to analyze Ukrainian laws concerning intellectual property, with a focus on the legal regulation of the activities of the National Intellectual Property Authority. Additionally, the study aims to develop recommendations for their improvement and systematization to avoid duplication of legal norms in this area.To implement institutional reform within the intellectual property sector, the Law of Ukraine «On Amending Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine Regarding the Establishment of a National Intellectual Property Authority» was adopted on June 16, 2020. This law introduced significant amendments to various Ukrainian laws. The changes affected the protection of rights to industrial designs, trademarks for goods and services, and layout designs of integrated circuits. Amendments also addressed the legal protection of geographical indications, inventions, and utility models. Additionally, the law revised regulations governing copyright and related rights, administrative services, and the effective management of property rights in these areas.An analysis of these amendments reveals that the legal provisions pertaining to the National Intellectual Property Authority (NIPA) are redundantly repeated across several specialized laws within the intellectual property domain.The article substantiates the inconsistency of the provisions of legislative acts in the part of regulating the activity of IP with the subjects of regulation of such laws, defined in their preambles.The author proposes many solutions to address the issue of duplicated legal norms overseeing the NIPA's operations: Codification of Ukrainian Intellectual Property Legislation (this could take the form of an Intellectual Property Code, an Industrial Property Code, or a Law on the Protection of Industrial Property); Passage of a Law National System of Legal Protection for Intellectual Property; Passage of a Law Specific to the National Intellectual Property Authority.In the author's view, the optimal approach to remedy the duplications evident in legislative provisions related to the NIPA — would involve removing these provisions from specialized laws and consolidating them into a singular regulatory act. This act should be formalized in the regulations governing the NIPA, as approved by a resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.