Russian squatters seize Crimean trademarks
Kyiv, June 25 (Navigator, Vladimir Mikhailov) – One of the serious problems that Crimean companies face today is the seizure of Crimean trademarks by Russian squatters. Patent attorney Maria Ortinskaya announced this at a round table in Kyiv.
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“Russian squatters monitor well-known Ukrainian companies that are not on the territory of the Russian Federation and submit an application in their name. After that, they offer Ukrainian companies to pay them a fee for transferring rights to trademarks, which is 5-6 times higher than the cost of registration with Rospatent,” says Maria Ortinskaya.
“The question arises: what should companies do in Crimea? The first thing we recommend doing is submitting an application in the Russian Federation. A few months ago, Rospatent issued a letter about the alleged recognition of Ukrainian trademarks and other intellectual property in the Russian Federation. According to this letter, a resident of Crimea or Sevastopol had rights to the intellectual property as of March 2014. He can submit a notification to Rospatent and allegedly automatically receive protection. But in fact, this is just a letter,” says Maria Ortinskaya.
According to her, specific mechanisms for protecting the intellectual property of Crimean companies in the Russian Federation have not yet been implemented - it is not clear whether they need to pay fees and what, etc.
“It is quite possible that there will be a situation where Rospatent is now collecting all these applications and then will say, “pay us money.” And perhaps, somehow, Russian companies will be able to register intellectual property rights faster. It is not clear how to conduct an examination if you had a trademark, and there is a similar trademark in the Russian Federation,” the lawyer warns.
“We recommend that our clients still go to Gosstandart for procedures and submit separate documents to the Russian Federation. If such an object or a similar one is already registered in the Russian Federation, then there may be different options. So, if your company is well known, then we can submit documents for recognition of a well-known trademark in Russia. Or if the company has operated in good faith in the territory of a particular country, then before filing an application it has the right to a free continuation of such right of prior use. This applies only to inventions, not to trademarks. We must also take into account that each situation is unique, we must analyze and act according to the circumstances,” says Maria Ortinskaya.
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