ИСТИНА

As a member of the Eurasian Economic Union Russia introduced regional exhaustion of trademark rights. Until 2002, there was only the international regime. Amendments to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation made it first national and then regional, after joining to the Union. The need for research of parallel imports in Russia arose due to the initiative of FAS Russia, which announced its position based on the practice of restricting competition, including the terms of licensing agreements and distribution of branded consumer products. From FAS Russia’s point of view, intra-brand competition leads to lower prices for consumers. On the other hand, in order to provide attractive conditions for foreign investments and for local content in production in Russia, regional exhaustion of trademark rights should be maintained. It can provide a faster payback period for investors. In addition, with regard to socially important facilities, for example, equipment for hospitals and clinics, there are fears of poor service from unauthorized service centers. Economic studies provide arguments for both points of view - the pros and the cons for legalization of parallel imports. The compromise that the Russian government is suggesting involves selecting several product categories to test the effects of legalizing parallel imports. The goal of the study we conducted was to find out product categories to be used as part of the such pilot project.