Alibaba Wins Trademark Victory in Russia's Supreme Court

On Tuesday Russia's Supreme Court upheld a May 2014 decision by the IP court granting China’s Alibaba Group exclusive right to trademarks which had been challenged by BVI-registered Holmrook Ltd.  The IP court initially terminated Holmrook's trademark rights because the cybersquatter had not used them for three years. Under Russian law, a lawsuit to demand the termination of trademark registration due to non-use can only be filed by "a party of interest" who plans to use this trademark. China’s Alibaba Group announced in court that it planned to expand its e-commerce operation in Russia. Russian courts are currently considering an Alibaba Group vs. Holmrook case over the alibaba.ru domain. Moscow courts of two instances have ruled in favor of the Chinese company, but the IP Court has returned the case for retrial for procedural reasons. The Moscow Commercial Court, which heard the case in December 2014, again ruled in favor of Alibaba Group and prohibited Holmrook from using the alibaba.ru domain, though that decision has yet to go into effect.

http://www.rapsinews.com/judicial_news/20150113/272936396.html

Ford Loses Trademark Appeal in Russian IP Court

Russia’s Intellectual Property Court sided with the Federal Service for Intellectual Property, Patens and Trademarks (ROSPATENT) in refusing to recognize Ford’s trademark as a protected word in Russia. In March, ROSPATENT ruled against Ford's petition to recognize the “Ford” trademark in the form of a blue oval with “Ford” written inside as a word that has been extensively used in Russia since June 1, 2007 to identify cars, car parts and accessories.  According to ROSPATENT, the materials provided by Ford were not enough to prove its claim that the word “Ford” is used extensively exactly as cited in the petition.  In addition, ROSPATENT said that “different forms of the trademark with the word Ford were used to mark Ford vehicles throughout its history.”

http://www.rapsinews.com/judicial_news/20141027/272466458.html

Russian Supreme Court Rejects Appeal of Parallel Importer

Russia’s Supreme Court declined to review the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Aqualife - a parallel importer of Krusovice (a registered trademark of global brewer Heineken Ceska Republica).  "Parallel" or "grey" imports are goods imported from another country without the permission of the official manufacturer, and Russia's Supreme Commercial Court confirmed in November that such parallel imports are illegal.  Heineken registered the Krusovice brand in Russia with Rospatent in 2004 in relation to just one commodity - beer.  A lawyer representing Aqualife said during the court hearing that the company is interested in the brand because its capacity to place the product on the market is limited without it. Earlier, the court dismissed another lawsuit filed by Aqualife against Diadgeo Ireland to terminate legal protection of the Guinness trademark. Currently, Heineken owns eight breweries in Russia.
http://www.rapsinews.com/judicial_news/20140403/271074485.html

Jaguar Challenges Russia's Approval of "Funny Jaguar" Trademark

UK company Jaguar Land Rover has filed a suit against the Russian Federal Service for Intellectual Property (Rospatent) seeking to invalidate their decision to provide legal protection for the Funny Jaguar trademark. The trademark, including the brand name "Funny Jaguar", was registered in 2012 at the request of businessman Alexander Petrov under three classes Goods and Services -- vehicles, advertising, and games and playthings -- and is used for children’s bicycles.  According to a 2013 complaint filed by Jaguar, the new trademark is confusingly similar to the Jaguar trademark.
Rospatent’s Chamber for Patent Disputes concluded that there is no similarity between the trademarks Funny Jaguar, Jaguar Racing and Jaguar Selected, which denote different items, even though they all include the word “Jaguar.”  The hearing on Jaguar's claim filed against Rospatent has been scheduled for February.
http://www.rapsinews.com/judicial_news/20140123/270524435.html

Russia's Patent Service Makes Online Trademark Search Tool Available

As of 18 December 2013, Rospatent has made its trademark data available to the TMview search tool, (in both English and Russian).  This integration is a result of a 3-year international cooperation program managed by OHIM (Office for Harmoninzation in Internal Markets) aimed at modernizing IPR in the Russian Federation.  TMview is the online multilingual consultation tool allowing users to search trademarks of all the participating trademark Offices free of charge. Since its introduction on 13 April 2010, the tool has served more than 5 million searches from 205 different countries, with users from Spain, Germany and Italy among the most frequent visitors.  Besides Rospatent, as of December 18, 2013, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has also integrated into TMview.  This last extension brings the total number of offices participating in TMview to 34 and with the addition of more than 400.000 Russian trademarks, as well as about 6.5 million US trade marks. TMview now provides information and access to almost than 20 million trade marks in total.

http://www1.fips.ru/wps/wcm/connect/content_ru/ru/el_zayav/
http://www.tmview.org.
http://www.rupto.ru/rupto/portal/21c4d4c0-694e-11e3-731c-9c8e9921fb2c?lang=en