MOSCOW, May 12 (RAPSI) – OJSC "Concern Kalashnikov" and the M.T. Kalashnikov firm, which was founded by the designer together with members of his family, failed to reach a settlement in their dispute over the AK-47 trademark, according to court records.
The Intellectual Property Court (IP Court) will resume the hearing on May 26.
The disputed trademark was registered by M.T. Kalashnikov in 2004, its legal protection was extended in late 2012 through 2022, according to patent agency Rospatent. It also covers clothes, headgear, toys, gaming machines and table games that bear the Kalashnikov logo.
OJSC "Concern Kalashnikov" said it had filed the lawsuit to terminate the logo’s legal protection because the designer’s heirs did not use it, and also because it produced full-scale mock-ups of various weapons, including the AK-47.
The ruling in favor of the designer’s family was made on December 23, 2014. The Presidium of the Intellectual Property Court said that the trademark was used by the rights holder (defendant) and other individuals who produced and marketed the gun in Russia under the rights holder’s control, including for the production of АК-47 airsoft replicas. The court ruled that there are no reasons for terminating the logo’s legal protection.
According to BIR Analitik, the information analysis system of the Prime business news agency, M.T. Kalashnikov was established in 1999 by Mikhail Kalashnikov, the designer of the famous gun, his daughter and grandson. It planned to focus on photography.
Mikhail Kalashnikov was 94 when he died on December 23, 2013.
The Kalashnikov Group is an association of the largest companies in the Russian small arms industry. It was established in 2013 and includes Izhmash,the Izhevsk Mechanical Plant, the Vyatskie Polyany Machine Building Plant Molot, the Koshkin Automatic Lines Design Bureau (Klimovsk) and NITI Progress (Izhevsk).
The group exports its products to 27 countries including the United States, the UK, Germany, Norway, Italy, Canada, Kazakhstan and Thailand.
