19.03.2024

STOICA & ASOCIAȚII definitively wins an important litigation in the field of trademark registration

Acting for an important fuel distributor active in the south and southeast of the country, the lawyers Daniel Aragea (Partner) și Yolanda Beșleagă (Senior Associate) won a complex litigation regarding the cancellation of a trademark that could have had hindered the further development of the client's commercial activity. The premise of this litigation was the conflict between a trade name used as a trademark for a long period of time and the validity of a subsequent trademark registered by a third party.

In the first procedural phase, based on the complex evidence supporting the request, the Bucharest Court admitted it, giving the client the benefit of the doubt and showed - in extensive reasoning based on the criteria developed in the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union - the reasoning that led to the conclusion that both causes of invalidity are founded, the mark being registered both in bad faith and with the injury of a trade name protected by the 1883 Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property.

In the appeal filed by the defendant, the Bucharest Court of Appeal reinforced the ruling of the first instance, showing the existence of a fraudulent consortium, involved in the registration of the trademark, and applied the legal requirements necessary for the protection of the trade name used as a trademark to the case.