The Arbitrazh (Commercial) Court of the City of Moscow has heard a trade mark dispute between Prosveshcheniye Publishing House and another Russian publisher, Ventana-Graf. The court has satisfied all the claims by Prosveshcheniye Publishing House, the claimant, recovering RUB 3.7 bn in compensation for breach of trade mark rights.

Prosveshcheniye Publishing House was represented by Elena Trusova, Dispute Resolution and IP Partner at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (Russia) LLP, and Senior Associate Anton Nefedev.

The court ruled that about 600 types of Ventana-Graf print publication bearing a logo confusingly similar to the Client’s trade mark were infringing products and must be withdrawn from the market and destroyed at the expense of the infringer, i.e., Ventana-Graf.

Elena Trusova and Anton Nefedev believe this case to be indicative of the IP protection state of affairs as it demonstrates that the Russian legal system is prepared to protect intellectual assets of rightholders. The symbol used by Ventana-Graf is obviously similar to the Prosveshcheniye trade mark. This was confirmed, among other arguments, by an opinion survey conducted by VCIOM (All-Russia Public Opinion Research Centre) at the request of Prosveshcheniye, which demonstrated that 80% of consumers confuse the two marks. For quite a long time, the defendant had published products bearing a logo that, as it admitted before the court, was a modification of the claimant’s trade mark. This means the defendant was fully aware it might potentially be punished to the fullest extent of the law for the infringement.

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