As a famous Corporation “nightmares” of their twins
In business, as in war, there are no rules. And if you suddenly invented a brilliant product that can successfully be sold on the market, you need to rush to register the rights to it and the brand. What to do if nimble speculators are trying to warm their hands on someone else’s intellectual property? “Ribbon.<url>” gathered stories about how famous companies expose pseudocongruences.
Facebook vs Chinese chips
Recently the world’s largest social network Facebook (includes 1.5 billion users, founder mark Zuckerberg is in the top five richest people in the world) defended in court the right for your brand.
A Beijing court has banned the manufacturer of chips and preservatives from the southern province of Guangdong to use its products for the Face book name is a trademark, registered in 2014.
Under Chinese law, to prevent the use of their brand local manufacturers, international corporations must prove that the trade mark is well known in China. The Chinese management of the plant intends in the near future to challenge this decision. “If the registration of our brand is recognised by illegal, why had we were allowed to do this? But if Facebook has such an influential brand in the world, why Chinese consumers can’t access its web site?” — told the Financial Times the Executive Director of the factory Liu Hongan.
Facebook in mainland China is blocked since 2009, but Chinese users can get to it via a virtual private network or VPN.
Not the iPhone
The volatility of Chinese ships helped the social network Zuckerberg, but failed famous American Apple (the largest company in the world with a market capitalization of more than $ 500 billion).
Last week, the court allowed the Chinese company Xintong Tiandi Technology to use the name IPHONE for collections of leather wallets, purses and other accessories. Apple failed to convince the court that when Xintong Tiandi Technology in 2007, has applied for registration of the trademark, iPhone was already in China well-known brand. However, the right to brand mobile phones iPhone Apple fully retained and not contested.
Photo: XINTONG TIANDI
First Apple filed a lawsuit against Xintong Tiandi back in 2012, but she has twice refused to review the case. The American Corporation intends to continue litigation for the iPhone by appealing the recent decision of the court.
Teddy bear went hands
Last fall, owner stamps Teddy bear Teddy company Carte Blanche Greetings — filed several dozen lawsuits against the Russian individual entrepreneurs from Bashkortostan who were selling toy bears. Judging by the amount, and the majority of claims was limited to 50 thousand rubles, the appeal to the court is “preventive” in nature. As follows from the filing of arbitration cases, in most cases, the court considered the requirements of the copyright holder fair though, the already meager amount of claims were reduced.
In one of the solutions adopted in March 2016, the judge notes that the grey Teddy bear with a blue nose and patch “is a character in the series works and is an independent result of creative activity”, and the exclusive rights reserved by the Carte Blanche Greetings.
In November 2015, the company has already sued one of the Moscow shops of a network “Ashan” compensation for the use of images of Teddy bear.
“Massandra” is left in the Crimea
In November 2015, located in the Crimea the wine factory “Massandra” has decided to sue the Ukrainian Breweries producing their products under the famous brand.
The Deputy head of “Massandra” Yanina Pavlenko has explained then that the Crimean, the company has taken samples of the drinks, sold under the brand name “Massandra” in Ukrainian shops — in particular, in Kharkov. On the back label of several types of wine, indicate that they are bottled in Kherson region, the plant “Kamyanka global wine”.
Bottling wine wine plant “Massandra”
Photo: Mikhail Mokrushin / RIA Novosti
The top Manager pointed out that the Ukrainian products are not has no relation to the Crimean “Massandra” and “damages the reputation of a unique enterprise”. Competitors chided and price dumping in the shops of Ukraine, famous brand of wine sold for 100-120 rubles cheaper than the products of Crimean enterprises. “We definitely do not leave it without response and will submit to the court”, — promised Pavlenko. The fight for brand “Massandra” and others (“Novy Svet” and “Magarach”) began in January last year, when the Ministry of agrarian policy and food of Ukraine has announced its intention to re-register in Kiev 23 Crimean state-owned enterprises.
After the annexation of Crimea to Russia the factory “Massandra” was nationalized, reorganized into unitary enterprise and together with the branches became subordinate to the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation.
LUKOIL slipped on the oil
The company “LUKOIL” in 2004 decided to stop the attempt to cash in on your brand and has addressed in Rospatent with the request to cancel registration of the trade mark Luxoil, which, according to the plaintiff, too is like a sign of “LUKOIL”.
The attempt was not successful, then the oil company filed a lawsuit to the manufacturer of motor oils “Lyuksoyl” and the Rospatent.
Brand Luxoil was registered in 1999 by the company “Pushkin plant, later transferred to a subsidiary “Lyuksoyl”. The trial was slow. Two of the arbitration court — the Arbitration court of Moscow and, on appeal, refused to “LUKOIL” in satisfaction of claims to the Rospatent, but the cassation returned the case for retrial. And in 2007, the Moscow arbitration court took the side of LUKOIL, recognizing that the trademark was registered Luxoil in violation of the law. As a result, the registration was cancelled and the engine oil the manufacturer had to rename the Luxe.
Ukrainians are deprived of Forbes
At the end of April this year, the holding Forbes Media has deprived the Ukrainian company United Media Holdings (UMH) Sergey Kurchenko able to use the brand Forbes. The corresponding decision under the claim of the company was adopted by the court in new York. UMH forbidden to use the trademarks not only in print but also in Internet resources and mobile applications.
This decision was preceded by a struggle with UMH Forbes Media, which lasted several years. Holding Vetek Kurchenko (which the media called the person close to the former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych) has purchased UMH, which owned the license to publish the magazine “Forbes Ukraine”, in the summer of 2013. The change of ownership was marked by scandal: the editors once left a large team of employees. Journalists complained about interference in the editorial policy of the new owners and the introduction of censorship. Former post chief editor, Mikhail Kotov, denied this.
In 2014, Forbes Media broke the license agreement with UMH and blocked the website Forbes.ua citing the same reasons that it dismissed employees of “Forbes Ukraine”. This did not prevent the Bank to continue publishing the magazine and website work at the new address — forbes.net.ua. In the edition of “Forbes Ukraine” the decision of the new York court called politicized due to the imposition by US authorities of sanctions against Kurchenko and promised not to stop issue of the magazine.
