On request of the Advokatskaya Gazeta newspaper Maxim Ali, partner and head of IP/IT practice at Maxima Legal, has prepared response to an article, written by Mr Sergei Zuikov, one of the leading Russian specialists in trademark law.
Commenting on his colleague’s publication, Maxim agreed, that today the main legal problem can be called “the right to infringe”. The essence of this right is that an infringer is insured against claims of the right holder if he managed to register his own trademark – even if it is similar to an earlier mark of the right holder himself.
Maxim also supported Sergei’s opinion regarding the need to simplify the mechanisms of challenging trademark infringers, especially in situations when right owners filed appeals against registration of a competing mark during its examination by the Russian Federal Service for Intellectual Property (Rospatent).
However, Sergei Zuikov’s idea of allowing courts to ignore the “right to infringe”, according to Maxim, will cause difficulties of a procedural nature, as different courts may as a result issue conflicting judicial acts.
