The Supreme Arbitration Court prohibited McDonald’s from using conflicting trademark
Presidium of the Supreme Arbitration Court has prohibited McDonald’s from using the “Piping Hot!” brand for coffee, tea, cacao, bakery and pastry. The case was submitted for reconsideration to the Moscow Commercial Court regarding the other claims made by Lina company, which holds the rights to the trademark and seeks to recover 1 million rubles ($33,790) for its illegal use.
On June 11, 2010, Lina established that McDonald’s sells sandwiches bearing the “Piping Hot” phrase alongside its own trademarks. Lina claimed trademark infringement, but McDonald’s disagreed and Lina was forced to go to court. The supervisory instance has satisfied Lina’s application to dismiss the judicial acts of three lower courts.The Moscow Arbitration Court held against Lina’s lawsuit on March 5, 2011. In addition to the damages, Lina sought a prohibition on the use of the “Piping Hot!” expression used on McDonald’s packaging. The Ninth Commercial Court of Appeals and the Moscow District Federal Commercial Court upheld the trial court judgment on May 24 and September 8, respectively. The courts established that Lina holds the exclusive rights to the trademark “Piping Hot,” applicable to 30-class products, including flour and cereals, bread and pastries. In their refusal to satisfy the lawsuit, Russian courts proceeded from the absence of a violation of the plaintiff’s exclusive rights to the trademark.
The ruling of the Supreme Commercial Court’s board on the submission of the case to the court’s presidium stresses that the court did not take into account that phrases are considered similar if they coincide in terms of all their elements – phonetic, grammatical and semantic. And all of the aforementioned elements coincide, according to the presidium.
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