Turkish Enka and Paveletskaya Square are arguing in court over the Paveletskaya Plaza trademark

On May 30, the Turkish development holding Enka filed a lawsuit with the Moscow Arbitration Court against the Paveletskaya Ploshchad company (Mall Management Group structure), which owns the Paveletskaya Plaza shopping and entertainment center. Rospatent is involved in the dispute as a third party.

According to Vedomosti, the dispute relates to the trademark "Paveletskaya Plaza". The fact is that this is the name of both the Enka business center and the shopping and entertainment center in the Paveletsky railway station area. Earlier, Enka filed a lawsuit against Rospatent for "invalidation of its decision to refuse to satisfy an objection to granting legal protection to this name."

The construction of the office complex was completed back in 2003, it follows from the information on the website of the Turkish holding. The Paveletskaya Plaza shopping Center, in turn, received a permit for commissioning only in 2021. At the same time, Paveletskaya Square filed an application for this trademark, which will be valid until 2031. Enka did not register such a designation.

Enka referred to the fact that it owns the commercial designation "Paveletskaya Plaza". The company had exclusive rights to it before Paveletskaya Square. In addition, the Turkish holding believes that the name "Paveletskaya Plaza" is associated with it, so its registration with a third party can mislead consumers. However, Rospatent did not find evidence in the materials submitted by the company that it had rights to the commercial designation of the disputed mark.

Most likely, Enka has appealed to the court to Paveletskaya Square with a claim for recognition of its actions on registration or acquisition of rights to the Paveletskaya Plaza trademark as an act of unfair competition, says Sergey Zuykov, patent attorney and managing partner of Zuykov and partners. However, the office center and the shopping complex are not direct competitors, they have different functional purposes, says Nikolay Zaichenko, partner at Nevsky IP Law.

Enka doesn't have much chance of overturning Rospatent's decision unless the Turkish company provides other, more weighty arguments, Zuykov believes. He points out that she has difficulties with evidence of the continuous use of the commercial designation "Paveletskaya Plaza" since 2003. In all documents, the building is referred to differently - "The building of the company "Enka", "Complex on Paveletskaya", and not "Paveletskaya Plaza", agrees intellectual property lawyer Anastasia Skovpen.

Source: Vedomosti