Sony filed 25 lawsuits against IP in Russia in a year due to counterfeiting

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), which is responsible for the release of PlayStation consoles, has filed 25 lawsuits against individual entrepreneurs in Russian arbitration courts since the beginning of the year due to trademark infringement. This is more than for the same period of a full-fledged presence in Russia, writes “Kommersant”.

Last year, SIE filed only one such claim with the Arbitration Court of the Krasnodar Territory. Of the 25 applications filed this year, 10 immediately fall on August. According to the publication, in two cases considered by the Moscow Arbitration Court, Sony demanded compensation due to the sale of counterfeit PlayStation gamepads on Wildberries.

At the same time, in two lawsuits considered by the courts of the Bryansk and Novosibirsk regions, the association for combating computer crimes (APKP), which unites 1C-SoftKlab, Sony Electronics, SIE, Microsoft and Nintendo.

Wildberries told the newspaper that they monitor the assortment around the clock, and sellers can resolve disputes about suspicions of counterfeiting using the site’s “digital arbitration”.

Experts interviewed by the publication note that the fight against counterfeiting may be important for Sony to maintain the image of the company, while a general surge in the activity of foreign copyright holders in Russia has not yet been observed, Maxim Ali, head of IP / IT practice at Maxima Legal, said. According to the CEO of Telecom Daily Denis Kuskov, the growth in the supply of counterfeit electronics to Russia is associated with the legalization of parallel imports, and suppliers probably understood that they were carrying fakes. The expert believes that it is not worth counting on a decrease in the volume of counterfeit goods.

March 10, 2022 Sony announced about the suspension of activities in Russia against the backdrop of the start of a special operation in Ukraine. The restrictions affected the supply of PlayStation consoles and the operation of the PS Store in the country. In May 2022, the Ministry of Industry and Trade included the prefix in the list for parallel imports. In March of this year, the media reported on a sharp increase the timing of the repair of the PlayStation due to difficulties in the supply of spare parts.