07 May 2015, 23:58 / Economics

FAS recognized the Tambov Wolf brand as a national one

The FAS is trying to achieve the right to regulate trademarks in amendments to the fourth antimonopoly package Elizaveta Bazanova “Tambov Wolf” is a national brand, the Tambov OFAS decided / Jasminska

“Tambov Wolf” is a national brand, the Tambov OFAS decided. On Thursday, it admitted that entrepreneur Nikolai Khomutov, having registered the Tambov Wolf brand, was engaging in unfair competition.

The entrepreneur has been selling souvenirs with the image of a wolf and the inscriptions “Tambov wolf”, “Tambov wolf is your comrade”, “Tambov wolf is your best friend” since 2005, the FAS said in a statement. Later, he registered the exclusive right to the brand and appealed to the Arbitration Court of the Tambov Region to recover compensation for the illegal use of the trademark by other entrepreneurs. The FAS regarded this as unfair competition, and the entrepreneur must withdraw the claims by June 22, 2015. It was not possible to contact Khomutov yesterday.

This is not the first such case in the practice of the FAS. In the spring, the service fined Samara OJSC Zhigulevskoe Beer in the case of unfair competition and use of the Sayany trademark for 300,000 rubles. Applications for violation of antimonopoly laws were filed by the Khakass company AYAN and a brewery in Essentuki. In their opinion, Zhigulevskoye Beer enjoyed exclusive rights to the Sayany brand, although it is a well-known carbonated drink. In April, the FAS accused the Astrel publishing house of illegally using the trademark “I Want to Know Everything.” In 2000, the publishing house registered such a trademark, although other book publications with the same name had previously been published on the market.

Wolf FAS comrade

The Tambov wolf is a character in local folklore of the Tambov region, as well as a well-known expression that is associated with belonging to a specific place - the Tambov region, explained the deputy head of the Tambov OFAS Svetlana Mazaeva, and in 1992, sculptor Mikhail Salychev created the “Tambov Wolf” - a figure of a wolf in a tree .

But practice develops differently: for example, in 2012, Red October announced a violation of antimonopoly legislation by Orkla Brands Russia, which produced Alenka chocolate. The FAS commission did not agree that the use of the historical label of Alenka chocolate contained signs of unfair competition, said Sergei Puzyrevsky, head of the FAS legal department.

The FAS is trying to consolidate its position in legislation - in new amendments to the fourth antimonopoly package (amendments to the law on protection of competition), adopted in the first reading by the State Duma. At a meeting with First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, it was decided not to combine the new FAS proposals on unfair competition with the fourth package (Vedomosti has a copy of the protocol). FAS was instructed to formalize them by September as a separate document. But the service still insists that these amendments be adopted immediately in the second reading as part of the fourth package, as follows from the FAS documents attached to the draft. A FAS representative did not respond to Vedomosti’s request.

The Ministry of Economic Development again did not support the project, says its representative. The FAS calls unfair competition the use of a trademark that can weaken the commercial value of another brand, he noted earlier, but such a restriction can only weaken competition between brands and hit entrepreneurs. You can file objections to Rospatent and the court to register a brand, notes Irina Kotelevskaya, director of the legislation monitoring center of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. Sanctions against patent violations should indeed be tightened, the individual entrepreneur believes, but the current legislation is sufficient.