Apple has been denied augmented reality trademark registration in Russiacitation: https://habr.com/en/news/t/459745/
Photo: Stephen Lam / REUTERS
The American Corporation Apple failed to register the trademark of augmented reality in Russia. Rospatent refused the company on the grounds that this element is too similar to the trademarks of the Russian company "Airports of regions". In addition, a similar sign belongs to a Belgian company that develops solutions in the field of augmented reality. All of these trademarks are registered in the same "Software"category.
For the first time Apple announced tools for application developers in the field of AR in 2017 (it was ARKit). In June of the same year, the company registered its trademark with the international Bureau of the world intellectual property organization.
As for the "Airports of regions", this company operates four regions in Yekaterinburg, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod and Rostov-on-don. In addition, three more airports are under construction. The trademark was registered by this company in 2013, the AR logo with a frame was registered in 2016.
Rospatent refused Apple's registration of the relevant trademark back in November 2018. After that, the company tried to appeal the decision, but the chamber of patent disputes also refused. Representatives of the Corporation argued their point of view that AR is a common term for augmented reality, so it should not be protected, in addition, the company's lawyers tried to prove that the verbal element AR is often used by different manufacturers as part of trademarks. This means that the similarity of signs cannot be established on its basis.
According to Rospatent, this evidence is rather weak, since AR is the only verbal element in both the Apple sign and similar trademarks. Therefore, the office cannot ignore the similarities.
According to the lawyers, Apple offered Rospatent to recognize that any trademarks with the AR element should cease to be protected by law, since the combination is used quite often. So, AR should be removed from legal protection. But this is not entirely logical. Perhaps the regulator would support the company if it said that already registered trademarks are not used for similar developments and software. This means that you can try to cancel other signs, because they are not used in the right category for Apple.
Experts also noted that such a situation, when an international company cannot register its trademark in Russia, is quite common. Apple may try to challenge the Agency's decision, but the company's victory is unlikely.
As an alternative, Apple may ask the copyright holders of similar marks for the right to use their own mark. To do this, you need to get a letter of consent. But in the case of Apple, it is likely that the company will require large compensation. A spokesman for Airports of the regions said there had been no requests for permission to use the company's trademark so far.