The largest Russian shoe chain, Kari, appealed to the Moscow Arbitration Court to declare the actions of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) illegal, writes RBC.
The reason for the investigation was contextual advertising of Zenden. When placing it in the Yandex search engine, the network used kari as a keyword, the rights to use which belong to Kari LLC, which registered it as a trademark. Kari complained to the FAS about its competitor, but the agency refused to file a case against Zenden.
The FAS confirmed the presence of a statement from Kari, but noted that the service employees did not see any signs of unfair competition in the current situation. They clarified that when assessing potential violations of the law, the FAS does not consider the use of a trademark as such, but the impact of the corresponding actions on the competitive environment. This may be expressed in the mixing of services from different manufacturers, when the consumer mistakenly believes that the manufacturer of the product is another entity. in the search results for the query kari on the Internet, the Zenden brand website is only at the bottom of the first page marked “Advertising”. In this case, the link points to the specific address of the website zenden.ru and contains the text accompaniment “ZENDEN - online store of shoes and accessories.” In addition, the colors and symbols of the two brands differ significantly, which also allows consumers to distinguish between them, the FAS added.
Meanwhile, Kari did not agree with the opinion of FAS specialists and is trying to challenge the agency’s decision in court. The company applied to the Moscow Arbitration Court to declare the actions of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) illegal, and the corresponding statement of claim was accepted for proceedings in December 2023.
Rating |