The Court of Intellectual Property Rights overturned Rospatent's decision to consider an appeal against its decision to refuse state registration of a trademark, since Russian legislation does not prohibit the registration of surnames as trademarks.

An individual entrepreneur was refused registration of the designation "Kolokolnikov" (“Колокольников”) as a trademark. According to Rospatent, the disputed name has no distinctive character. It is a common Russian surname. Therefore, it cannot individualise the goods of a particular person.

The Court for Intellectual Property found the refusal unreasonable.

The legislation does not prohibit the registration of surnames such as trademarks.

Such a prohibition exists only in relation to the registration of designations identical with the name (including the surname and proper name) of a person known in Russia without the consent of his/her heir. Moreover, compliance with this prohibition is not verified at the stage of examination of the declared designation, but when the objection of the interested person is considered.

In this case, Rospatent had to prove that consumers would perceive the claimed designation as a surname.