The Coffee Caffers Network of St. Petersburg won a patent dispute with the head of the copyright of the Lord of the Rings

In 2023, the owners of the St. Petersburg Baggins Company LLC contacted Rospatent to register a combined trademark for 30 and 43 MKTU classes, but a year later the department refused to satisfy the request, since the companies of the Middle -earth LLC They opposed the brand. record.

The key claim of the Foreign Copyright Holder was the similarity of the verbal element in the company’s registered trademark with the name of one of the heroes of the novel “The Lord of the Rings”, writes “DP”. In response to the decision of Rappa, “Baggins Company” appealed the refusal to the patent dispute chamber.

The company caught attention to the fact that Rospatent had previously registered for the Baggins company a stylized image of a goat and the verbal designation of Baggins coffee as registered trademarks, whose elements are also present in a new brand. In addition, the company said that “there is no evidence of the associative connection” of the brand registered with Tolkien’s works, since the interior of the coffee shops does not contain references to the universe of the British writer.

The Patent Dispute Chamber found the arguments of the owners of the Baggins company convincing and registered the combined registered trademark, canceling the Bapping decision.

The complexity of the patent dispute was that the registration authorities are experiencing a “true dock” for a great business such as the middle land Enterprises LLC, says Maxim Dishlyuk, managing partner of the National Center for Intellectual Capital, which represented the interests of the Gungins of Baggins Company.

“The interest of foreign companies in the Russian market is obvious. Only I have more than a dozen things in which the opponents of our entrepreneurs are foreign copyright holders, “said Dyshlyuk DP. He added that the foreign business” actively fight “for intellectual property in Russia.

“Baggins Company” has its rights over the Baggins Coffee brand since 2017. Below are 195 coffees in the regions of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Voronezh and Penza, as well as in the Krasnodar territory. According to RusProfile, in 2023 the company’s revenues amounted to 11 million rubles (a 29.41% increase in the year) and net earnings – 2.8 million rubles.

On January 22, RB.RU reported that the Swiss Richemont, who suspended commercial activities in Russia after the start of the military operation in Ukraine, submitted a request for registration of the Cartier brand to Rospatent.