On September 16, 2026 the IV Annual Conference ‘Intellectual Property. Best Management and Protection Practices’ was held by MK Group, one of the leading organizers of business events in Moscow.
Veronika Popelenskaya, senior lawyer and attorney of the Intellectual Property practice team of Andrey Gorodissky & Partners Law Firm, delivered a report on the following topic: ‘Industrial Design vs Trademark: What to Choose to Protect the Packaging and the Product's Appearance’.
Besides that, at the conference Veronika moderated the discussion on interaction between trademark owners and marketplaces, hosters, and other information intermediaries.
In her presentation Veronika compared industrial design and trademark based on several criteria: the concepts as such, the process of obtaining legal protection and associated potential obstacles, the scope of legal protection, and the determination of similarity between trademark or industrial design and competitors' products.
Furthermore, Veronika elaborated on methods for calculating compensation for infringement in both cases (for industrial design and trademark), outlined the duration of legal protection for those intellectual property protection devices, discussed their tax implications, and cited several examples from case law; finally, she offered recommendations on registering and protecting packaging as both an industrial design and a trademark.
During the discussion moderated by Veronika, participants talked about where the boundaries of online platforms' liability currently lie, taking into account the latest Constitutional Court’s ruling and legislative changes.
The speakers also exchanged views on how to distinguish legitimate parallel imports from the importation of counterfeits disguised as genuine products, how to establish a dialogue with marketplaces, and how to strike a balance between unfair competition and the denial of intellectual property protection.
This is the fourth time the MK Group’s Intellectual Property Conference is being held, drawing a large audience that includes heads of legal and IP departments, R&D managers, patent experts, professionals specializing in the protection of trademarks, inventions, and copyrights, as well as various intellectual property experts and lawyers.
A detailed video is available at the following link in the ‘Insights’ section.
