BGP Litigation lawyers have acted for the “netmonet” electronic gratuity payment service, defending its trade mark rights before Rospatent.

A competitor of the service filed an objection with Rospatent seeking to terminate the right to the trade mark on the basis for coinciding with its domain name, constituting unfair competition and confusing users.

The BGP Litigation advocates and lawyers succeeded in substantiating the untenability of the competitor’s position since a trade mark has “priority” over a domain name no matter when the domain name was registered and unfair competition matters do not fall within Rospatent’s terms of reference. In addition, the lawyers confirmed absence of bad faith in the client’s actions and proved that the client began using the designation “нетмонет” and “netmonet” for services of classes 35, 36 and 42 of the International Classification of Goods and Services before the complainant, and the trade mark had acquired recognition in relation to the client.

As a result, Rospatent issued a decision in favour of the client, which retained its legal protection of the trade mark “netmonet”.

“We are delighted to have been able to help our client in a dispute with a bad faith competitor. The “netmonet” service is well known on the service market and the rights to the trade market are crucial for its business”, noted BGP Litigation Senior Associate and Advocate Anastasia Dudko, who handled the project together with Junior Associate Victor Kashuba.