The Russian Intellectual Property Court (IPC) has left a ruling by the Russian Patent and Trademark Office (RUPTO) to refuse a “Scottish land” trademark registration by a major Russian retailer “TD Perekrestok” unchanged, said a Patent Office official.

The ruling to refuse the registration of the trademark in Russia has been based on the fact that the applied designation can be generally considered as a place of origin of the product, as well as the manufacturer’s location. In turn, the “TD Perekrestok” company has provided documents proving that the product sold under the trademark in question is actually produced in Scotland by Glenforest LTD company (the seller) according to a contract with ZAO “Firma Vastom” company (the importer).

The company planned to register the designation under the 33rd NICE class (whisky).

“The labels provided by the applicant contain information concerning the manufacturer, namely Glenforest LTD, but do not contain any information in regard of the applicant, thus not proving the existence of a legal bound between the product and the applicant.  Based on these findings, information concerning the manufacturer of the product is found to be potentially confusing to the customers, as the registration of the claimed designation has been requested by a third party entity, i.e. “TD Perekrestok”, as stated in the Office’s press report.