Rospatent prevented T-Bank from registering the T-Man trademark

The bank applied for registration in classes 9, 16, 18, 25, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45, and wanted to secure its exclusive right to the name for ATMs, clothing, telecommunications services , computing. programs, applications, souvenirs, robots, research, analysis and much more, but it was rejected.

On December 2, Rospatent issued a certificate only for three ICGS: 36 (loans, insurance), 39 (transport) and 43 (reserves). The protection will be in effect until the end of April 2034. The bank declined to comment.

“If we look at the application for this trademark, we will see that the registration did not reach the volume expected by the bank,” Vadim Dunaev, creative director of the Names Bureau, explained to RB.RU.

As Olga Bondareva, founder of the Isibrand patent office and patent attorney number 2104, told RB.RU, a common reason for rejection is “falsehood”, when a brand is capable of deceiving the consumer about the covered product or service. Additionally, for some classes a rejection from the bank may follow, as the “person” in the name dominates and the Tinkoff “T” designation may not have registered for the entire list. According to the lawyer, there is most likely “a lot of correspondence” between the bank and Rospatent on the issue of “brand distinctiveness” and its differences from other names.

T-Bank did not limit itself to a single application and continues to register several trademarks in “Tchelovek” according to a broad class of the International Classification of Standards. Two more applications are being registered, Bondareva added.

The expert believes that Rospatent could try to limit the bank’s appetite for these applications. But the best option is continuous writing. In case of refusal to register it with the required ICLG, the credit institution can appeal to the Patent Disputes Chamber and prove that it is a “fanciful word”.

According to Vadim Dunaev, an expert in the field of names, even large companies do not manage to register all names, especially since there are still applicants for trademarks with the letter “T”.

“Rospatent is strict but fair. An interesting fact: at the moment, not only T-Bank, but also Tochka Bank and the Korean LG Electronics are competing for different “T brands”. In the future we will know what will result from this,” said the creative director of the Titles Office.

As reported by RB.RU, in November Yandex LLC registered the trademark “Products without a person” in Rospatent in 17 classes of the International Classification of Standards of Ukraine. Experts praised this initiative as a “startup of the future” in the field of unmanned technologies or even organizing entire stores without people.