The Intellectual Property Court (IPC) has denied the invalidity of PAO City, the management company of the Moscow-City business center, a previous decision by Rospatent. As a reminder, City applied to Rospatent to register the Moscow City trademark as a well-known trademark in Russia for property management services. The company cited the scale of the project and the enormous investment involved. However, after review by the state agency's specialists, the company was denied .
Rospatent based its position on the fact that the existing arguments do not support the active use of the brand for services provided in the field of real estate management, and the designation "Moscow City" itself designates the city of Moscow. Therefore, the brand lacks the necessary differentiating properties and could be mistakenly perceived by people as a geographical indication of the place of manufacture of goods and provision of services, rather than as a brand.
Russian laws provide well-known trademarks with significant advantages, including:
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no time limit;
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no requirement for strict use;
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no need to renew every 10 years;
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maintaining the effect when not in use for a period of time.
Therefore, it was entirely logical for PAO City to challenge Rospatent's decision in the Intellectual Property Court. In 2021, the court ordered the state agency to re-examine the management company's trademark application for a significant number of goods classified in Class 3 and services falling under Class 8 of the International Classification of Goods and Services. The agency complied, but even during the second review, it deemed it unnecessary to register the brand. Now, the court of first instance has upheld the legality of Rospatent's experts' actions.
PAO City was founded in 1992, and in 1994 it was authorized by the city authorities to act as the managing company for the Moscow International Business Center. According to City's financial documents, almost a quarter of its shares are owned by the Cypriot company Voscan Properties Ltd., as well as ExpoStroyServis LLC, registered in Moscow. The owners of the remaining 75% of shares are not indicated in the financial statements.
