Russian Patents Blog

I witness steady growth of fashion apparel companies among our prospective clients who turn to us seeking help in registering trademark in Russia – just recently they were a knitwear designer from NY and absolutely fabulous British based clothing company (which made me regret I’m way to bulky nowadays to wear their suits – my only bet would be a t-shirt…sigh…)

In the light of the above, an article in The Economist was fun to read.

As Carl Oppedahl of e-trademarks-l nicely summarized it:

“DESIGNERS of fancy apparel would like their customers to believe that wearing their creations lends an air of wealth, sophistication and high status. And it does—but not, perhaps, for the reason those designers might like to believe, namely their inherent creative genius. A new piece of research confirms what many, not least in the marketing departments of fashion houses, will long have suspected: that it is not the design itself that counts, but the label.”

I couldn’t say it better in English.

BTW, guys at The Economist produce absolutely fascinating wall calendars – check them out! I got mine in the post couple of weeks ago and it keeps me amused ever since – so much fun to study all those tiny details, it’s always sets me in positive mood

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Once in a while we happen to receive an inquiry for an old Russian patent (or rather Author’s certificate as it used to be known back in USSR days) which does not come up in the list of official patents published in Russian patent office database.
As a rule, the reason is that this very document is classified: patent was granted and it even gets mentioned somewhere (once people happen to find it), but it cannot be retrieved due to being classified.

I saw quite nice example of such a classified patent today while visiting with my 7 yrs old kid Mikhail Kalashnikov’s museum in the city of Izhevsk, Russia. Kalashnikov got a classified patent for submachine gun – actually, that was just a prototype of AK-47, or even prototype of some vital parts later used in the design.

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Update: This matter resolved as of Feb.22 – thanks to Emil and folks from e-trademarks-l mailing list.

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We’re preparing response to provisional refusal issued by the Russian Patent office under the Madrid agreement concerning international registration – it must be done in English and I got stuck with proper wording (haven’t done that before). I tried to find an example of such a letter but failed.

Could anybody help?

Here is a draft translation made by Google Translate:

–
With regard to the international registration ?*****
Name of applicant: ****
Address for correspondence: ******

We suggest removing the word element «ABCD» of legal protection and specify it as unprotected element of the trademark.
–

Please submit your variants via comments.

Thanks in advance!

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