Cases

US court prohibited UMH Group from using Forbes brand

Ukrainian Media Holding was prohibited to use trademark of Forbes publishing, including Forbes Ukraine or any other variation of the trademark in printed press, online resources and mobile applications.

On 20 April 2016 New York Court in the dispute between the Ukrainian publisher of Forbes Ukraine magazine — UMH, and the American publishing house Forbes Media LLC, ruled in favor of the latter and terminated the license of Forbes Ukraine. The Court considers termination of the license agreement between Forbes Media LLC and UMH to be legal “due to violations of censorship and principles of independent journalism”.

Apple lost its rights to iPhone trademark in China

Chinese company Xintong Tiandi Technology, which sells bags, cases and other products under the iPhone brand, has won a case against American Apple in a Beijing court.

Beijing Higher People’s Court allowed the Chinese company Xintong Tiandi Technology to use the iPhone brand in the production of leather wallets, purses and several other types of similar products. At the same time, all the rights to the iPhone trademark of mobile phones remain with the US Corporation. Apple initiated a lawsuit back in 2012, but courts of inferior jurisdiction have on two occasions denied its claim. The Resolution of the Higher Court states that the plaintiff failed to prove that in 2007, when Xintong Tiandi filed its trademark application, iPhone was a well-known brand in China, as smartphones by Apple first went on sale in China in 2009.

Later on it became clear that Apple is not going to give up and will fight for its exclusive rights to the iPhone trademark in China’s highest courts.

In 2012 Apple paid local company Proview USD 60 million to resolve the two-year dispute, as the latter claimed it has the right to the iPad trademark. Proview Technlogy Co is located in Shenzhen in the south of the country and produces components for monitors. It registered the iPad trademark in several countries, including China, as far back as the year 2000.

Court allowed search of YouTube offices in US

The Pechersk District Court of Kiev has upheld a motion by the investigator of the Prosecutor-General’s Office on access to YouTube video sharing servers in the United States.

Access shall be provided to obtain information about the user who published video files by Security Service of Ukraine in the office of former Deputy Interior Minister Sergey Chebotar. The investigator now has access to documents of the YouTube LLC company in Mountain View, California, USA.

There, according to Pechersk court, investigator Bogomolov could obtain the personal data of the user who posted videos, his email and IP-address, hosts from which the registration was carried out, as well as materials of video files “How Chebotar sold sand, Episode 1”, “How Chebotar sold sand, Episode 2”, “How Chebotar sold sand, Episode 3”.

This right is granted to the investigator by the court for one month.

As is known, at the end of last year the Pechersk court adopted a similar regulation. At the time it allowed the Prosecutor-General’s Office to search the Ukrainian office of Google, the company that owns YouTube.

Kiev Court arrested accounts of Fozzy-Food

The Solomensky District Court of Kiev arrested the accounts of the Fozzy-Food company because of value added tax under-reporting by its officials, according to a court ruling of 18 May.

Solomenskiy District Court received a request to impose a freeze of property in criminal proceedings of 29 March 2015. The investigation found that officials of LLC Fozzy-Food, during their financial and economic relations with a number of companies, under-reported VAT in January — February 2015 in the amount of UAH 32.2 million through non-commodity transactions. This offense was recorded in the act of an unscheduled field inspection by the Fiscal Service in November 2015. The inspection revealed a discrepancy between purchased and sold goods, failure to prove the reality of financial and business transactions, inability to fulfill contractual relationships. The court decided to arrest the company accounts in 2 banks, banned the administering of cash resources and ruled to halted debit transactions with funds that arrive in accounts.

Fozzy Group unites the Silpo, Fora network of supermarkets, wholesale hypermarkets Fozzy, Bila Romashka pharmaceutical supermarkets, Ringoo electronic stores, as well as Nijinsky Cannery, Poultry Farm LLC Production and Commercial Firm Varto.