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A non-resident company has the right to own a specific trademark, patent, copyright or other intellectual property, in the same way as any other legal (or physical) person.
In this respect, the non-resident company is no different from any other foreign company, possessing intellectual property and granting the right to use this property to other persons for appropriate consideration.
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| 1) | Copyright. It should be noted that almost every audio/photo/visual/textual material may be subject to copyright. Even a photograph in an advertising brochure promoting the manufacturer's products can be regarded as the valid subject of a copyright. If the non-resident company owns this copyright, the appropriate fee should be transferred to it for the use of those materials, thus reducing the taxable income of the resident company. Copyright is regarded as an intangible good, and therefore no customs or other restrictions apply on its transfer from one party to another. Nothing can prevent the author or creator of some specific work of art or the current owner of the copyright from selling the copyright owned by him to a non-resident company, at a price freely agreed by the parties involved in the transaction. |
| 2) | Trademark. If an entrepreneur sells goods or services, which he or she wishes to protect by registering a trademark, the following problem becomes key - who is going to be the most effective holder of the trademark? Where a resident company is the holder of the trademark, then first of all, if there is a restructuring of the business into another company, the trademark will also have to be re-registered. Besides, where debt-recovery claims are filed against the resident company, it could be divested of the trademark as well as of its other assets by court order. On contrary, if the trademark is initially registered as the property of a non-resident company (or is sold to it after registration), then, firstly, in the event of a change or liquidation of the resident company, the trademark will remain in the possession of the entrepreneur. Secondly, the resident company can always pay the non-resident company a certain consideration for the right to use the trademark, thus reducing its taxable income. |
| 3) | Paying patent fees and royalties. All the afore-mentioned information concerning copyrights and trademarks is also applicable, where the non-resident company provides the resident company with the right to use technological investigations, patents, know-how, inventions and rights to use marketing and business strategies belonging to the non-resident company. Where the non-resident company is the holder of the rights to the property described above, the resident company using this property will pay the non-resident company the appropriate patent fees or royalties. |
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