MOSCOW, September 2 (RAPSI) – The Moscow Commercial Court has ruled in favor of a lawsuit filed by Apple Corp. to recover 1.7 million rubles ($26,000) from four operators of the Russian dot-com apl-msk.ru (apples-msk.ru) for illegal use of trademarks and trading in counterfeit products, RAPSI reported from the court on Wednesday.
The US company filed a lawsuit to recover 16.5 million rubles ($252,500) in May 2015.
The court has also prohibited the defendants from using Apple, iPad, iPhone and other Apple trademarks. The Apple representatives claim that the Russian dot-com changed its name from apl-msk.ru to apples-msk.ru and other similar names.
The defendants in the case are the companies Profit, Electrotechprom, Argo and Madzhesta Plus. The court ruled that Profit is to pay 500,000 rubles ($7,650), Electrotechprom and Argo 100,000 rubles ($1,500) each, and Madzhesta Plus 1 million rubles ($15,300).
Apple says that these companies are connected and have been identified by the dot-com as its operators, contact partners or recipients of payment on its behalf.
The first complaints against apl-msk.ru surfaced in late 2013. In December 2013 and February 2014, Apple lawyers carried out evidentiary purchases and confirmed that the products infringed on their property rights.
In June, the Moscow Commercial Court approved an out-of-court settlement between Apple and Ivan Nemkin, a resident of Ryazan found guilty of the illegal administration of Internet domains.
Under the out-of-court settlement, Nemkin admitted to illegally using the intellectual property of the US company in the domain names apples-msk.ru, apple-msk.ru, apple.msk.ru, applemsk.ru, apples.msk.ru, applesmsk.ru, aplmsk.ru, and apl-msk.ru, and pledged to turn them over to the plaintiff. Nemkin also agreed never to buy domains that are confusingly similar to the Apple trademarks.
