Ba da ba ba ba ♫ ... I'm NOT Lovin' it...

The world is watching in horror as one country, Russia, has invaded another country, the sovereign nation of Ukraine.  Countless thousands of lives have been lost and more will die as the war wages on.  The vast and overwhelming majority of the world is behind Ukraine and against the unprovoked invasion by Russia, standing for peace over the aggression of Russia.

Countries in solidarity against Russia have imposed sanctions against Russia knowing that doing so may have economic and other consequences from Russian retaliation.  One form of Russian’s retaliation has been to suspend enforcement of patents owned by companies and individuals from “unfriendly countries.”  Not surprisingly, the U.S. and those of the European Patent Organization (EPO) are on the Russia “unfriendly” list.

What this means for U.S. patent owners is that they cannot enforce their Russian patents.  Accordingly, such Russian patents held by U.S. companies and individuals can be infringed by anyone in Russia rendering the patents worthless to U.S. companies and individuals.

And, while as of this post, U.S. owners of trademarks and copyrights have not had their intellectual property rights rendered worthless, it seems like it's only a matter of time.

For example, many are aware that several U.S. companies have closed restaurants and businesses in Russia including McDonald’s which closed around 850 locations.  Not allowing these store fronts to go abandon, a Russian burger joint, Uncle Vanya has applied for trademark protection of a logo that can only be characterized as confusingly similar to the iconic golden arches. To the right is a copy of the trademark application’s logo for registration.  The party line explanation (a.k.a. propaganda) for the logo is that it is to represent the Cyrillic letter “B” which is the English equivalent of the letter “V,” representing the initial for Vanya. 

Needless to say, McDonald’s cannot be happy with an interloper burger joint using a clearly intentionally similar mark to mislead Russian consumers.  Stated differently, McDonald’s is not singing the phrases of this attempt to usurp its trademark or to paraphrase (and taking liberties of) one of McDonald’s trademark phrases, “Ba da ba ba ba ♫ ... I'm [NOT] Lovin' it...”

We will continue to work with our clients now and in the future to protect and preserve their intellectual property rights in Russia.

 

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© Stephen J. Weyer 2022

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