Lragir, Armenia
Dec 7 2007

ARMENIAN COURT RULED IN FAVOR OF RUSSIAN COMPANY

The Russian mobile operator Vimpelcom won the suit against the
Intellectual Property Agency of Armenia on December 7, ARKA reports.
Vimpelcom wants to replace the brand Armentel with Bee Line Armenia,
and the Agency of Intellectual Property of Armenia refused to
register it, ARKA reports.

The Agency had declined to register this mobile brand because there
is an IT company in Armenia with a similar name. The judge announced
that the justifications of the refusal were not sufficient because
according to the Armenian legislation, registration is declined in
case the names are similar to the degree of confusion and denote same
or similar goods and services. According to the judge, similar
pronunciation is not sufficient justification, especially that in
English they are written differently.

The representative of the Intellectual Property Agency Ara Abgaryan
said they will consider appealing against the decision of the
Economic Court after studying all the arguments. By the way, the
representative of the Russian Stas Marketing Partners company Andrey
Stas says if the mobile brand is registered, the owner of the
Armenian BI Line Brand may demand 5-10 percent of the turnever of the
Russian operator, which will total from 4.5 to 9 million dollars.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress