Burger King Corporation, a major US fast-food company, has filed a lawsuit with the Moscow Commercial Court against Muscovite Alexei Makoveyev, who registered the burgerking.su and burger-king.su domains in his own name, Izvestia daily reported on Monday.
Burger King believes that he unlawfully infringed upon their trademarkrights.
Izvestia reported that in addition to the ban on further use of the trademarks, Burger King is seeking 500,000 rubles ($16,292) in compensation from Makoveyev.
Makoveyev is known in Russia as a dealer in so-called pseudo-franchises. In late 2000 his company was selling franchises of famous company clones, such as ZaraZara.
The names and logos of these companies are very similar to the originals.
To avoid problems with rightful trademark owners, pseudo-franchise sellers apply to the Federal Service for intellectual property, patents and trademarks, but do not go through with registration procedures until the last minute.
Makoveyev and his representatives were unavailable for comments.
“We cannot comment on the case,” Burger King Corporation Russian representative Ivan Shestvov told Izvestia.
The next hearing in Burger King’s case will be held in January 2013. So far the judge has approved a ruling on taking provisional measures under the lawsuit: until the case is over, Makoveyev is prohibited from assigning the right to administer the burgerking.su and burger-king.su domains to another individual.
He also cannot transfer them to other registrars for support, or cancel the registration.