Rights ‘suspended’
The question remains, how Russia will act in the near future concerning the intellectual property rights of Western companies in Russia. According to the authoritative platform World IP Review WIPR, the Russian Ministry of Economic Development has announced that it is considering “suspending” intellectual property rights to mitigate the impact of the sanctions.
McDuck
Meanwhile, in recent weeks several Russians have applied for new trademarks that obviously infringe the rights of well-known Western brands. According to American lawyer Josh Gerben, these are brands such as McDonald’s in Cyrillic script, the McDuck brand (slang for McDonald’s in Russia) and дядя ваня (Uncle Vanya) with a tilted McDonald’s logo. An application has also been made for the word Idea in Cyrillic in the design of Ikea and someone wants to register Rustogram as a variant on Instagram. Whether the Russian trademark office will accept these infringing trademarks remains to be seen. We will keep you informed of any developments.
Bas Kist
