Cartoon Characters as Grounds for Lawsuits – a Commentary for Rossiyskaya Gazeta

In December 2025, companies affiliated with Soyuzmultfilm filed 7 lawsuits against entrepreneurs in the Stavropol Territory with the regional Arbitration Court, and another five in January 2026. If film companies, production centers, and other organizations are added to the list, the number of IP protection lawsuits in the Stavropol region will reach dozens.

Small businesses, usually engaged in retail, are typically penalized for selling goods featuring images of patented characters. According to one counterparty screening service, Soyuzmultfilm holds more than 100 trademarks, most of which are images of characters from Soviet-era cartoons. There are exceptions, however: for example, Soyuzmultfilm owns the copyright to the image of Tama-Tama from the modern Prostokvashino series.

With rare exceptions, arbitration courts consider such claims under simplified procedures, very quickly, leaving business owners with minimal chances of winning, although the fines imposed are relatively small. Companies affiliated with Soyuzmultfilm are among the most active plaintiffs, but film studios also frequently go to court.

So how do rights holders find counterfeit products? According to patent attorney and managing partner of Zuykov and Partners, Sergey Zuykov, there are several ways to identify such goods. The simplest is an independent search on the internet using keywords or images.

“There are services for the automated detection of counterfeit products, followed by the sending of claims. These services significantly simplify and streamline the process of identifying counterfeits and help systematize this work,” Sergey Zuykov said.

As Alena Panteley, a lawyer at Forward Legal, told RG’s correspondent, counterfeit detection may be carried out either by the rights holder itself (if it has an appropriate in-house department) or by specialized legal or anti-piracy companies engaged under contract.

In certain cases, reworking an image can reduce risks, but such reworking must be original and provable. Evidence may include, among other things, a contract with a designer and a technical brief for developing an original design. Another option is purchasing a license to use the rights in product manufacturing.

“But licenses, of course, cost quite a lot of money – based on my experience, anywhere from 5% to 15% of the product’s value. And naturally, not all companies are willing to pay such licensing fees. Moreover, rights holders’ requirements are not always easy to meet. They may concern product quality, assortment, production volumes, and so on,” Sergey Zuykov noted.

He also pointed out that sellers of goods – for example, inexpensive Chinese consumer products – are likely in the most vulnerable position. If the supplier is a Russian company, a recourse claim for damages caused by supplying goods that infringe third-party rights can be filed against it. But if the supplier is a Chinese company, the possibility of recourse is effectively zero.

Source: Rossiyskaya Gazeta