22 August 2019 Court of Intellectual Property Rights (hereinafter – CIP) issued a new judgement (Case No. A21-7328/2014) in the case of a dispute between Sony Corporation (hereinafter – Sony) and PAG Ltd. (hereinafter – PAG) for the protection of exclusive rights to the Sony trade mark (hereinafter – The PAG case).
The PAG case concerned a dispute between PAG and Sony over PAG's attempt to import a batch of Sony goods into Russia without the consent of the rights holder. The courts upheld most of Sony's claims for the protection of its trade mark rights (hereinafter — TK), However, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation (hereinafter – Constitutional Court) In Resolution No. 8-P of 13.02.2018 г. (hereinafter – Decision 8-P) indicated the need to review the PAG Case on new circumstances. We wrote in more detail about the PAG Case and the application of Ruling 8-P in CIP's practice in October 2018 newsletter. In a new ruling in the PAG Case, the CIP agreed with the conclusions of the lower courts and upheld Sony's position on most of the claims.
This Information Letter highlights CIP's current approaches to the application of Regulation 8-P in cases of protection of rights of TK right holders, including those set out in the new ruling in the PAG Case, as well as FAS's practice in cases of unfair competition in connection with the prohibition of parallel imports.