We’ve been gathering data for our very own inhouse database of trade mark applications filed with Russian Patent Office, and while doing manual double checking of all entries for consistency, I’ve been making notes of trade marks which catched my attention – these being mostly by foreign applicants and attempts to infringe on well known marks (these will be subject of my next post).
I’m not making it a point to post here a scientifically precise data :), so I do not have handy start-end date of the data range processed – roughly, it was 2 month period of 2008 (February-March).
As always, the leader is United States of America – US companies filed registration of 87 marks.
OK, let’s see…companies which already have strong presence in Russia have been firming it even more with registering more and more marks:
4 by jimi hendrix (hendrix,authentic hendrix,experience hendrix,jimi hendrix) – hey Jimi, nice to see ya in Russia you’d never been before to!
3 by Xerox (xerox premier,xerox office,xerox exclusive)
1 by Gillett (showerpod)
1 by Procter & Gamble (seduisante)
1 by Mary Kay (beauty that counts)
1 by Herbalife (h3o pro)
2 by Colgate (colgate enamel protect)
1 by IBM (stop talking start doing)
1 by Bell Corp (racer)
1 by Calvin Klein underwear
1 by Universal Studios (universal channel)
Some more well known names I can’t recall (or forgot to write down) owners of:
lucky strike (I’m aware that this was the essense of American Spirit, no? Welcome to wild wild Russia old fellow!)
tide absolute (is it P&G?)
lenor summer day (is it P&G?)
old spice (is it P&G?)
cadillac (is it P&G too? …just kidding)
pizza hut
red bull
One of the most prolific trade mark registrars from US is Illinois Tool Works – they’ve been filing hulluva lots of marks in Russia.
And just for fun, here’s unsorted list of marks recently filed by US companies:
subtile,silite,devtube,2ton 2 ton,tru-bond,dev pack,fasmetal,franklynn industries,diamondkote,korrosflex,plexus,spectrasensors,oster,
restasis,ma310,ma320,ultimatic,ma3940lh,enmotion,ultima,relayfax,nd’s space,bd aqueo premium,georgia-pacific,zingspot,florange, nutrafruit,st-246,siga,kf,korn/ferry international,equifax,densit,densiphalt,ducorit,eukanuba make a good dog great,hammer+sickle,
k&w,nars,ml material london,style & co,fomrez,intermune,aspire fund,pars aspire fund,fittipaldi,lamiglas,tsc,snp,quick descent,quick pump in,clover, speed,nars,fury,geographix,banana republic
28 marks:
Japan
About half of the filed for registration in Russia japanese marks belong to well known in Russia companies:
Honda: honda pilot
Matsushita: motion focus technology
Epson: epson photo fine premia
Citizen: citizen cxw,citizen cxh
Seiko: greenmethod
Nissan: nissan gt-r,skyline,silvia,350z, gtr,370z
Daiken: daiken
Mazda: mazda
The rest of the marks I never heard about – my guess is all of these are new, but I might be perfectly wrong and some of these might have a hundred years history back in Japan :): oppen,prostaff,tough under force tuf display,chergui,crystal snow,smartmesh,fractal tube,sofy,y.s.park,style works,style & co,tools of the trade,capcom
21 marks:
China (I’ll comment on these marks in my next post re possible trade mark infridgement)
16 marks:
UK
Among these 16 marks there are few already well established in Russia names such as Sobranie (tobacco) and Bentley, and I can see Sela filing thru UK couple of marks: sela softwear and sela extreme. Funny thing is that the Sela company is based in Israel and all clothes are labelled “made in China”. Sela boasts a network of popular affordable sportwear/casual clothes shops throughout Russia.
14 marks:
France
I can see three main tendencies in filing French marks:
1) some come in Cyrillics only (4 out of 14) (hmm, same number as for German registrars…interesting coincidence)
2) distinctively French sounding cliches, like baron de francois, l’officiel voyage, meribelle or la revue des montres
3) names sounding as they could have been hailing from any other country, like malvin, wilfactin, betafact and pullman hotels and resorts
11 marks:
Netherlands (filed mostly by International companies, modifications of well-known in Russia marks: axe by Unilever,Fruittella, Dove (soap).
Germany (4 out of 11 were filed in Cyrillic only)
Spain (My favorite among eleven Spanish marks is contrabandista)
10 marks:
Swiss (there was one filed by Nestle and two filed by tobacco company)
7 marks:
Canada
6 marks:
Finland
Iran (funny thing is, none of the filed marks sound distinctively Middle Eastern – they are quite dumb machine generated names, like
ave, home plus,golrang, o2, cloritex, whitex)
Austria (mm packaging,teadit,supertrans,variotrans,ruslan,metago)
Italy (kmb bank, esseti, .normaluisa, albina, monurelle...)
4 marks:
Estonia (4 modifications of aeroc)
Taiwan (gainward,mali,onpin,eee box)
3 marks:
Korea (pace,hyper,myway) – former two by Samsung
India (rosart tz, socalm, tata nano)
Cyprus (viaggio italiano, tsar-kvas, bering)
Belize (some company decided to claim three kinds of ways – eastway, westway and freeway, both in Latin and Cyrillic symbols)
Denmark (two marks in Cyrillics and one of the most recognized Danish brands – bang & olufsen’s bioline)
Brasil (rhinobaby,penalty,stara)
Sri Lanka (montegree,nature’s harmony)
Luxemburg (diamond cellular,diamond elixir,nutri calm)
Sweden (macrolane,castorx capital,superfect)
Turkey (sunset swimwear,pilsa,monica ricci) – ok, we’ll be await for a line of pseudo-italian women fashion/swimwear.
Israel (tiny love,tosaf,gci)
2 marks:
Columbia (fussione, nuestra tele)
Ireland (cystystat, cystistat)
Mexico (esperanto (that’s tequila), la morena)
Norway (norlife, vikingomega3)
1 mark:
Hungary (coberon chronos)
Cayman Islands (rumalaya)
Seychelles (alessandro manzoni) – well, we’ll be await for yet another line of pseudo-italian shoes or clothes.
Indonesia (sakura)
Sultanate of Oman (amouage)
Qatar (qinvest)
Singapore (rock)
Portugal (topcer industria de ceramica lda)
Czech (thun hotel & restaurant)
Vietnam (ngoc linh)
Thailand (cpf)
Filed under: registration of trade marks in Russia, trademark watch service | No Comments »
