Russia considers producing counterfeit American goods in response to US sanctions
Members of the Russian State Duma have drafted a bill that suggests permitting manufacturing American goods without needing to obtain a license to use intellectual property. This was proposed as a way of retaliation for sanctions imposed by the United States, Interfax news agency reports.
According to the report, the bill has been drafted by State Duma’s Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin jointly with leaders of parliamentary factions, and does not specify a list of goods that are intended to be forged in Russia. It has not yet been published on the Duma’s website.
The draft bill specifies that “the exhaustion of exclusive rights” principle could be applied not only to goods and companies based or registered in the United States but also to goods and companies from other countries.
“With this bill, we give a significant blow to the Americans, because all the success and domination of the Anglo-Saxon, western world is based on and protected by the intellectual property right, and so we aim our blow there,” Deputy Head of the State Duma’s Legislative Committee Mikhail Yemelianov stated.
The bill additionally envisages a right of the Russian government to ban any products from the United States, and suggests providing the state authorities with a power to restrict work of international rating agencies in Russia and to suspend cooperation in a number of areas.
Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev stated that Russia must cut down the import of goods from the United States to its markets in response to new sanctions imposed by the United States.