Pursuant to the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan "On Licensing" and the Law on Permissions and Notifications, the companies providing telecommunications services require an operating license from the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation, and Aerospace. It is reported that all telecommunications operators are legally obliged, as part of the licensing requirement, to connect their channels to a public network controlled by KazakhTelecom.

According to Art. 23.6.7 of the Law on National Security, it shall be prohibited that foreigners, stateless persons, and foreign legal entities to directly and (or) indirectly own, use, dispose of and (or) manage cumulatively in excess of 49% of the voting shares, as well as stakes, units of a legal entity engaged in telecommunications as a long-distance and (or) international telecommunications operator, possessing land (cable, including fibre optic, radio relay) communication lines with no positive decision of the Government of Kazakhstan based on the opinion of the authorised body regulating the field of communications, agreed with the national security agencies. It is reported that, in practice, foreign investors must obtain a government waiver for the acquisition of more than 49% of shares in a company providing telecommunication services.

Kazakhstan has appended the World Trade Organization (WTO) Telecom Reference Paper to its schedule of commitments.

In accordance with subparagraph 4-1 of Art. 7 of Law No. 544, the Minister of National Economy of Kazakhstan ordered the approval of the Rules of Domestic Trade (Order No. 264). Arts. 105-1 and 106-1 of the Rules mandate e-commerce sellers to indicate their BIN (business identification number), address of business operations on the territory of Kazakhstan and mobile telephone number registered in Kazakhstan in order to operate in the country. Additional information on this requirement is found in Annex 3-10 of Order No. 4.

Kazakhstan has a telecommunications authority: The Telecommunications Committee of the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry of the Republic of Kazakhstan. However, it is reported that this entity's decision-making process is not fully independent of the government.

According to Art. 38 of the Patent law of the Republic of Kazakhstan, foreign individuals, foreign legal entities and stateless persons residing in the Republic of Kazakhstan enjoy the same rights as Kazakhstani citizens. However, under Article 36.5 of the Patent Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan, natural persons residing outside the Republic of Kazakhstan or foreign legal entities shall exercise their rights as patent applicants and patentees, as well as the rights of interested persons in the authorised body and its organisations, through local patent attorneys. Pursuant to Art. 1 of the Law, patent agents are citizens of the Republic of Kazakhstan who, in accordance with the legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan, have the right to represent natural and legal persons before the authorised body and expert agency.

Art. 56-1 of the Law on Informatization requires that internet resources with ".kz" and ".қaz" domains must be hosted on hardware and software complexes located in Kazakhstan. In other words, an internet resource (website, web application, web service) using a ".kz" or ".қaz" domain must be hosted on a server (owned/rented/cloud hosted/VDS hosted/virtually hosted) in a data centre (server/office) located in Kazakhstan. The server must also be connected to a Kazakh internet provider and use a (dedicated or shared) Kazakhstan IP address.
A similar requirement has been in place since 2005, as established in Clauses 7 and 8 of the Regulations for the Allocation of Domain Space in the Kazakhstan Segment of the Internet. These clauses provided that an application for domain name registration may be refused or registration may be cancelled if the domain servers were not located inside Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan is a party to the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).

Paragraph 6-1 of Resolution No. 246 prohibited the storage of telecommunication subscriber information outside the country. The Resolution was repealed in July 2023.

Kazakhstan has a copyright regime under Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan No. 6-I of June 10, 1996, on Copyright and Related Rights. However, the exceptions do not follow the fair use or fair dealing model, therefore limiting the lawful use of copyrighted work by others. Arts. 18-27 list the exceptions, which include the quotation, in the original language or in translation, for scientific or for research, polemic, critical or informational purposes and to the extent justified by the intended purpose; the reproduction, broadcasting or communication to the public by cable of architectural works, photographic works or works of fine art permanently located in public; among others.

Copyright is not adequately enforced on the Internet in Kazakhstan. It is reported that foreign companies complain about inadequate IPR protection and that there is a high level of pirated software used in the country. Judges, customs officials and police officers lack IPR expertise, exacerbating weak IPR enforcement. In addition, online piracy is reported to remain a concern, particularly through piracy devices and applications, illegal recording, and the use of unlicensed software.

Kazakhstan has ratified the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty.

Kazakhstan has ratified the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Performances and Phonograms Treaty.

According to Art. 7.6 of the Informatization Law, the central executive body carrying out state regulation in the field of electronic industry is tasked with establishing a unified register of trusted software and electronic products. According to Art. 54.3.1, for the purposes of state security, only approved software may be used for public procurement and for critical information and communication infrastructure, whether state-owned or private, including telecommunication infrastructure. To become part of the register, the software applicant must transfer (i) source program codes for accounting and storage; (ii) source program codes (if any) and; (iii) a set of configurations for the licensed software of "e-government" information technology objects, as stated paragraphs 10, 11, 12 and 13 of the Order of the Minister of defence and Aerospace Industry of the Republic of Kazakhstan No. 53/НК (Rules for the formation and maintenance of a register of trusted products of the electronics and software industry, as well as the criteria for including products of the electronics industry and trusted software in the register of trusted products of the electronics and software industry). In addition, it is reported that the local content for this software must not be less than 70%.

The Civil Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Enterprise Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan provide a framework for the effective protection of trade secrets. According to Art. 126.1 and 1017.1 of the Civil Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, a trade secret comprises valuable information, including secrets of production (know-how), production technology, management model, as well as ways and methods of increasing profits. In addition, according to Art. 28 of the Enterprise Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, among other provisions, the protection of trade secrets consists of prohibiting the unlawful receipt, distribution or use of information constituting a trade secret in accordance with this Code and the legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan. This regulatory framework includes remedies and penalties for the disclosure of trade secrets.