The fourth part, dealing with intellectual property, was signed into law on December 18, 2006 and came into force on January 1, 2008.

Since its foundation as an independent successor state of the former Soviet Union, the Russian Federation had been engaged in a large legislative project of developing a new Civil Code.

In July 1994, President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree authorizing the "Establishment and Development of Private Law in Russia" program.

[1] The program called for a group of legal researchers, led by Sergei Alexeyev, to create a new civil code for the nation.

Initially, Russian politicians on all sides of the political spectrum opposed the idea of a Civil Code.