MOSCOW, April 3 (RAPSI) – Russian entrepreneur Alexey Zaitsev has filed an appeal with the Supreme Court seeking to reverse court rulings prohibiting him to use domain name saucony.ru and awarding to a U.S. company Saucony, Inc. compensation in the amount of 300,000 rubles ($4,700), court documents read on Monday.

The entrepreneur has appealed against a ruling by the Kaliningrad Regional Commercial Court of May 16, 2016 and that by the Thirteenth Court of Appeals of August 30, 2016. Lastly, he has appealed a January 20 ruling of the Russian Intellectual Property Court (IP Court).

According to the U.S. company’s petition, it owned “Saucony” trademark, properly registered and put on Russia’s State Trademark Register. Alexey Zaytsev administered domain name saucony.ru, which was registered on December21, 2003.

Since the date of registration, the domain has not been available. The claimant has insisted that the use of “saucony” in the domain name infringed upon its exclusive rights as the trademark owner.

The courts ruled that Zaytsev had no sound legal right and legitimate interest regarding this domain name, since he was not owner of “saucony” trademark and the said domain did not reflect his name or the name of his company.

Besides, the defendant failed to present evidence of any other legitimate interest in the use of the disputed trademark. Therefore, according to the judgement, Zaytsev’s actions were defined as an act of unfair competition.