Patent Warfare: The EU’s Restrictions on Russia and the Case for Smarter Sanctions

The European Union (‘EU’) has imposed restrictive measures in the field of intellectual property (‘IP’) rights on Russia as part of its general sanctions policy. REG 2024/1745 has introduced a paradigm shift, moving from targeted to general sanctions by repealing the ability of all Russian nationals, residents and legal persons to file an application at the IP offices within the EU. This paper provides an overview of the general toolkit of IP-directed sanctions, the choices taken by the EU, and the implementation by the European Patent Organisation (‘EPOrg’). It demonstrates that the broad and general sanctions recently adopted are based on a false understanding of Russian measures, lack effectiveness and inflict significant collateral damage on the patent systems within the EU. Merging the classification of sanctions in international politics and law with insights from the European patent system, this paper argues that truly smart patent-oriented sanctions should rely on private rather than public enforcement mechanisms.