Sberbank acquired a domain that differs only in one character from the address where the Alfa Insurance company website is located. Registration of ownership of the a1fastrah.ru domain was carried out on November 20, 2023, the domain itself is not delegated, noted RB.RU.
The website of the Alfa Insurance company is located at alfastrah.ru, so the domain acquired by Sberbank differs only in one character. Instead of the second lowercase Latin letter “l” the number “1” appears.
Sberbank sent the request to SberUniversity, which at the time of publication did not respond to RB.RU’s questions. Alfa Insurance was also unable to comment on the situation.
Legal side of the problem.
According to Assia Dmitrieva, a member of the Russian Bar Association, according to paragraph 5 of paragraph 2 of article 1484 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, the way to use the exclusive right to a trademark is to publish it on the Internet, which also includes a domain name. The copyright holder, if necessary, can protect the exclusive right of it.
Kirill Rubalsky, partner of the law firm Zhdanov, Koida, Rubalsky and Partners, clarifies that the acquisition of such a domain in itself cannot constitute a violation of a person’s rights, unless it is established that this action is an element of cyber crushing.
A violation of rights will occur if, for example, a website with such a domain sells services that are protected by the intellectual rights of others.
“For example, if a trademark (service mark) is registered in relation to insurance services and insurance products are offered for sale on a website with a domain name that is confusingly similar to the protected elements of that trademark commercial, this can be considered a violation of the rights of the copyright holder of said brand and an act of unfair competition,” Rubalsky explained to RB.RU.
Leonty Marshava, head of corporate disputes and trade management practice at Paritet Consult Consulting Bureau, also points out that merely using an alphabetic phrase that is confusingly similar to an existing trademark is not an obvious violation.
However, the lawyer points out, this fact deserves the attention of the copyright holder. Marshava points out that ALFA and A1FA do not create a single semantic meaning.
In such cases, the services offered to customers on the page with the disputed domain name play an important role. We are talking about misleading users through similar designs, copying visual styles, etc.
To prevent the use of a domain, the copyright owner must prove to the court that it is similar to the point of confusion with the trademark it has registered.
Previously, the FAS opened a case following Eksmo’s complaint against Simbat. The publishing house believes that “Simbat” in its line of speech therapy educational aids copies the design and layout of the series “I speak correctly”, “Primer” and “The speech therapist in your house” by Nadezhda Zhukova. The case was opened for violation of paragraph 2 of Art. 14.6 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”.
Author:
Natalia Gormaleva
Source: RB
I am a professional journalist and content creator with extensive experience writing for news websites. I currently work as an author at Gadget Onus, where I specialize in covering hot news topics. My written pieces have been published on some of the biggest media outlets around the world, including The Guardian and BBC News.
