“Sports Lotteries” fight for the trademark “National Lottery”

“Sports Lotteries” dispute the decision of Rospatent to refuse to register the trademark “National Lottery”. Under this name, the organization distributes a lottery organized by the Ministry of Finance. The service believes that the words in the declared designation are descriptive: the definition of “national lottery” can be applied to all Russian lottery operators. A similar problem was already faced by Stoloto at the beginning of the year, which is trying to challenge the decision of Rospatent in the Supreme Court.

“Kommersant” found in the filing cabinet of arbitration cases that LLC “Sports Lotteries” filed an application with the intellectual property court on August 16, challenging the decision of Rospatent to refuse to register a trademark. We are talking about the verbal designation “National Lottery”: according to the database of documents of Rospatent, the office refused to register the mark on March 30. The opinion states that the applied for designation cannot be registered because it does not have “distinctiveness, as it consists of unprotected elements”, namely “national” and “lottery”.

At the time, Sports Lotteries objected that Rospatent had already registered the trademarks National Reserve, National Present, and Gosloto, the country’s main lottery. At the same time, the operator noted, the word “national” in one of its meanings is defined as “related to the state”, and “Sports Lotteries” act as the operator of all-Russian state lotteries.

A similar dispute between another lottery operator and Rospatent already took place in January. Then “Stoloto” fought for the registration of the trademark “Scratch lotto scratch lotto”. (see Kommersant of January 9). Rospatent refused the operator due to the fact that the words do not have a distinctive ability: this is the name of all instant lotteries with an erasable protective layer. In July, according to the file of arbitration cases, the complaint of Technological Company Center JSC (Stoloto brand) against the verdict of the court on intellectual property rights reached the Supreme Court. A decision has not yet been made in the case.

The Sports Lotteries noted that the combined trademark had already been registered, while a denial of legal protection for the verbal spelling was received: “Applying to the court in this case is a common practice when the organization disagrees with the refusal to register the trademark.”

Meanwhile, lawyers emphasize that the lottery operator’s arguments can turn against him. “Since any lottery in Russia is regulated by law and can only be organized by the government, the phrase “national lottery” is applicable to all lottery companies, therefore it cannot be registered for one person, any participant in this market can use it,” explains Anastasia Snopkova, a lawyer at BGP Litigation. . In this regard, he believes, the plaintiff’s arguments that he is connected with the state are irrelevant.

The word “national” is an unprotected element, which means the possibility of its free use, and in this case there is no need to confirm the connection with the state, agrees Aleksey Koshkin, a patent attorney, a leading specialist in trademarks of the Online Patent company: “Today, there is a large the number of trademarks that include that word.”

The company may think about a new name for its lottery, believes patent attorney, managing partner of Zuykov and Partners Sergey Zuykov: “Or continue to use the former, which also does not contradict the law, but without registering a trademark.”

Yulia Yurasova, Anna Zanina, Yuri Litvinenko