Foreign Patent and Trademark Department defended in court the trademark registration of Fats and Oil Integrated Works JSC in Uzbekistan

Former unscrupulous distributor has for a long time infringed the exclusive rights of Fats and Oil Integrated Works JSС in Uzbekistan by continuing to produce products labelled Oliv’ez after the termination of the license agreement between the two companies.

Antimonopoly Committee had repeatedly established the fact of illegal use of the Сlient’s trademark and issued orders to stop the infringement. Currently YUS (the project is managed by Elena Shchelkunova, Head of Foreign Patent and Trademark Department) is handling several cases in economic court aimed at lost profit recovery.

However, instead of putting an end to the infringement, the opponent went to the court to invalidate the trademark registration of Fats and Oil Integrated Works JSC claiming that it is similar to Russian salad name that has come into common use (in Russia and the CIS countries it is called Olivier after Lucien Olivier who invented the dish) as well as to the word “mayonnaise”.

YUS’s Foreign Patent and Trademark Department managed to defend the Client’s trademark registration in Court of Appeal. The court noted that the cooking recipe for Russian salad varies among consumers, the salad is dressed with different sauces including sour cream, homemade sauces, mayonnaise, and that there is no approved or patented list of ingredients for this dish. Based on this, the panel of judges concluded that the mayonnaise under Oliv’ez brand didn’t indicate or point at Russian salad. It is important to say that the judge noted in his decision that a consumer associates Oliv’ez with mayonnaise only due to the strong and recognized brand, but in no way because of the indication of the product itself.

The court’s decision will allow Fats and Oil Integrated Works JSC to proceed with the consideration of the pending cases in economic courts and to achieve fair recovery for the illegal use of the company’s trademark.