Review

The article analyzes the criminal law provisions of the Criminal Code of 1903 which shows that despite the abolition of serfdom the criminal law provisions alluded to different social conditions of citizens and thus directly denoted inequality of people. In addition the priority of the interests of the state over private interests remained unchanged that has had an influence on the understanding of the meaning of the basic criminal-law concepts. At the same time the Criminal Code of 1903 marked a significant difference from the Code of 1845, expressed as a significant reduction in the number of criminal acts, the general humanization of criminal punishment, and in a more progressive approach to the design of criminal law. For example, in Art. 1 for the first time was directly affixed the fundamental basis of criminal law - the principle "nullum crimen sine lege". Analysis of the provisions that provided for the responsibility for encroachment on the objects of intellectual property rights allowed to conclude that the criminal law protection of objects of intellectual property rights was carried out at the expense of: 1) criminal law, which provided for responsibility for encroachment on copyright and patent law. In this case the legal protection of copyright objects was closely linked to the censorship and in fact was inseparable from it; 2) the provisions establishing criminal liability for actions related to the disclosure of secrets; 3) provisions relating to the introduction of goods into the market and their circulation in the market, as well as the import of such goods into the territory of the Russian Empire, which provided the liability for the following acts: a) acts related to the illegal manufacture of works and their introduction into circulation, including the illegal circulation of equipment that may be used for the illicit manufacture of works; b) acts related to the illicit sale or other distribution of works; c) other acts related to the illegal circulation of objects of intellectual property rights.

Key words: criminal law protection, objects of intellectual property rights, criminal liability, encroachment, Criminal Code of 1903.