Federal Antimonopoly Service considered claims of the "Warming Up" owner to be unfair competition

In 2021 and 2022, the Sochi blogger, Kristina Sophie, registered the trademarks "Warming Up", "Underside of Warming Ups", and "Underside of Launches". After registering these trademarks, Sophie began to send mass claims to other bloggers about the infringement of the exclusive rights to the trademark, demanding the termination of the infringement and compensation, according to an expert on warming up, Elizaveta Dubina from Moscow.

Warming Up is a marketing technique used to warm up a cold audience and prepare goods and services for sale.

In a statement to the Krasnodar UFAS, Dubina also noted that she planned to launch a course called "Warm Up Training from Nimfa.Liza", but due to the ban on using the term "Warm Up", the course was not launched, and this caused losses for her and other market players.

After reviewing the application, the Antimonopoly Commission found that Kristina Sophie's actions violated Article 14.4 of the "Law on Protection of Competition". This article prohibits unfair competition related to the acquisition and use of exclusive rights to means of individualization, such as trademarks.

Sergey Zuykov, patent attorney and managing partner of Zuykov and partners, notes that the decision of the Krasnodar Federal Antimonopoly Service seems reasonable, as it was made after Ms. Sophie's claim to protect her right to a disputed trademark was denied, as well as after the decision of Rospatent, which refused to cancel the disputed mark. However, at the same time, they established many circumstances that could allow other persons to use it. He explains that in such circumstances, it would be difficult for the antimonopoly authority to ignore the positions of the court and registration authority. Kristina Sophie can, of course, file an application with the court to appeal the decision of the Federal Antimonopoly Service. However, Mr. Zuykov believes that there is virtually no chance of reversing the decision.

Source: Kommersant