4 September 2020 the Russian Ministry of Justice registered the Order No. 5527 of Roszdravnadzor dd. 29 June 2020, approving criteria for evaluating the information, publication of which may result in a website inclusion in the register of prohibited websites and its blocking. The Federal Service for Surveillance in Healthcare (Roszdravnadzor) renders such a decision.

The new rules on the medicines interchangeability No. 1360 (hereinafter – the Rules) enacted by the Russian Government have entered into force on 9 September 2020.

16 May 2020 the Russian Government enacted the rules on online sales and delivery of medicines (the Rules). According to the Rules, online sales of medicines are allowed. The exceptions are: RX medicines, narcotic and psychotropic medicines, and medicines containing more than 25% ethyl alcohol.

According to art. 38 of the Law on fundamental healthcare principles the software used for medical purposes has a legal status of medical device. Therefore, market turnover of such software in Russia is allowed only after software is registered before the Federal Service for Surveillance in Healthcare (Roszdravnadzor).

On March 3, 2020, the Russian Government introduced to the State Duma the Draft Law on amendments to the Russian Civil Code, namely, article 1360.1.

According to Chapter 57 of the Federal law No. 289-FZ dated 03.08.2018 “On Customs Regulation in the Russian Federation and on amending certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation” (Law on customs regulation) a rightholder is entitled to file to the Customs Service an application for including their IP objects to the Customs Register seeking rights protection.

In September the draft law was amended with a new provision on the creation of Register of pharmacologically active substances. Under this provision, Rospatent will keep the publicly available Register of pharmacologically active substances protected by patent.

Under the Federal Law “On drugs circulation” (Law), information on state registration of drugs in Russia shall be publicly available.

As outlined in art. 1247 of the Russian Civil Code, any applicant may choose one of the options how to be represented before Rospatent.