ST. PETERSBURG, February 14. /TASS/. The Russian Constitutional Court has ruled against the destruction of the so-called grey products - non-counterfeit goods imported from another country without the permission of the intellectual property owner.
"The destruction of goods, imported in Russia as a result of parallel imports is permitted only due to their low quality or for reasons of security, safeguarding people’s life and health, protecting the environment and cultural values," the court’s press service has said in a statement.
Constitutional Court Judge Gadis Gadzhiyev told reporters that the court’s decision is not meant to abolish the authorized dealership in Russia.
"In all cases when parallel imports of products can damage business reputation of the copyright holder - for example, when products of due quality, but not adapted to the Russian market are being imported - such goods must not be imported, and the intellectual property owner has the opportunity to prevent such imports," he said.
He said the main goal of the ruling was to prevent certain companies from gaining a monopolistic stance in imports of certain trademark-protected goods.
"We were speaking only about situations when the intellectual property owner is acting to increase his own profits, when he is doing his best to, so to speak, hike prices and create an obvious monopoly," the judge said.