Seattle Trademark Lawyer

The Seattle Times reports today:

“Starbucks plans to open its first store in Russia next month in the Mega Mall north of Moscow, a spokeswoman said. The company’s business partner in Russia, Kuwait-based M.H. Alshaya, said earlier this year that it planned to open Starbucks shops in Moscow and St. Petersburg in August and have 10 stores in Russia by the end of the year.

“The company’s entry into Russia was delayed for years by a trademark dispute that was resolved last year.”

Here’s some background on the dispute. According to Russian news sources (stories here and here), Starbucks initially registered STARBUCKS as a trademark in 1997 when it began making plans to enter the Russian market. In 2002, however, a company called Press appealed to Rospatent, the Russian trademark office, for rights to the mark on the ground that Starbucks had not used it in the country for more than three years. Rospatent granted its request. Press then sold (or perhaps licensed) the trademark rights to OOO Starbucks, a company reportedly owned by Moscow lawyer — and trademark warehouser — Sergei Zuykov (pictured above). Mr. Zuykov reportedly then offered to sell (or, again, perhaps license) the mark to Starbucks in Leo Stoller fashion for $600,000. The parties litigated the matter before Rospatent, which Starbucks won in 2005. At the time, Starbucks said it had succeeded in cancelling a “pirated version of its logo.” The Seattle Times’ statement that the dispute was “resolved last year” suggests that Starbucks may have settled with Mr. Zuykov following its 2005 win, though that’s not clear.

Mr. Zuykov is a colorful character. A Moscow television news show about him on REN TV stated that “gaps in legislation” have allowed the 39 year-old lawyer to “capture” foreign trademarks and offer them back to their rightful owners. (Transcript here.) The show said Mr. Zukov began dealing in trademarks in August 1998 when he failed at selling car alarms. The show added that “many companies” have paid Mr. Zukov rather than “lose time and their reputation [in] the Russian market.” 

“Now Sergei lives in a fabulous house in the center of Moscow and drives a Mercedes. The money he has got from the new business allows him to support four family members. He thanks God for that crisis and for the new times.”

Mr. Zuykov told the show that “I, at least, do not regard [my acts] as pure piracy. It is not piracy at all. There was a plan, the one you were talking about when trademarks were annulled because they had not been used. This plan is covered by the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property in 1896.”