Advertising-Related Good Faith Use of Trademarks
The most recent court practice of challenging decisions of the
Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU), which order to impose
fines for distribution of misleading information contributes to the
existing practice regarding the necessity to ensure fair use of the
registered trademark.
Specifically, as far back as in 2013 the AMCU local branch
recognized as unfair competition the actions of the dairy producer
(Producer) that misrepresented information about the origin of its
product by placing information on its web-site and on the
packaging, in particular, by identifying the products as
"ORIGINATING FROM PURE SOURCES OF THE CARPATHIANS [SK:
originally used and registered as "З
ЧИСТИХ
КАРПАТ"]" (Mark). The
Producer challenged the AMCU decision at the commercial court. He
asserted that he is the owner of the "ORIGINATING FROM PURE
SOURCES OF THE CARPATHIANS" trademark, which is neither
challenged nor deregistered.
