companies that left Russia but continue to file applications with Rospatent

Companies that have announced their departure from the Russian market after 2022 most often do not completely sever their legal relations with Rospatent: having closed some of their retail outlets and divisions, they continue to submit applications to Rospatent to protect their brands in Russia.

According to media reports, this primarily concerns The Coca-Cola Company and Starbucks.

In April 2024, the American corporation The Coca-Cola Company (Dze Coca-Cola Company) applied to the Federal Service for Intellectual Property with applications for registration Coca-Cola, Sprite, FantaPower Ade, Bonaqua — only 10 items. Starbucks sent applications for the registration of eight trademarks at once, including Starbucks Coffee, Frappuccino and some others.

It should be noted that these foreign companies are not the only ones interacting with Rospatent in protecting their intellectual property.

Chanel SARL sent the department received 6 different applications for registration at once (the list includes not only verbal designations like Chanel No. 5but also symbols), Mercedes-Benz Group AG — 2 applications (brands are offered for registration Terrain Mode And Stronger than diamonds), Microsoft Corporation — 15 applicationsNissan — 4 applications (And All of them even passed procedure registration); Pizza Hut — 3 applications; Disney — 8 applications (including one of the most popular heroines – The Little Mermaid), Universal — 4 applications (including trademark future film “Wicked” – “Wicked”), Procter & Gamble – 8 applications.

However, the obvious leader in this activity is partially PepsiCo, which has closed sales of its popular drinks. Its representatives filed 55 applications to Rospatent: here and Active bottlesand numerous slogans (“Fantasy tastes better with Lay's”, “New Year's Series” and much more).

Why do foreign corporations submit applications to Rospatent?

How explains CEO of Online Patent Alina Akinshina, commenting on the appeals of Starbucks and The Coca-Cola Company to Rospatent, – the companies' trademarks that have not been used for three years may be cancelled under Russian law. The brands in question were withdrawn from the market in 2022. Accordingly, their legal protection will cease in 2025. Filing applications for trademark registration is aimed at preventing the loss of rights to key designations.

What happened on the Russian market after foreign companies announced their departure in 2022?

The fate of foreign corporations after this date was different. At least three development paths can be identified.

The first is the sale of its divisions to Russian companies. The most striking example: KFC And McDonald's. The new owners, having received the asset, immediately carried out a rebranding: KFC became mostly Rostic's, returning to to its originsthe former McDonald's was renamed “Vkusno – period”. The reformatting of trademarks was sometimes not so radical when sold: for example, “Rosbank”, coming out from the Societe Generale group, left recognizable verbal name of the banking group without changes in Cyrillic.

The second way is to announce their departure, and after some time the companies returned. data “OTR”, Korean Hyundai is working in Russia again (24 applications to Rospatent from Hyundai Motor Company) and the French Citroen.

The third direction – the companies first announced the termination of legal relations, but then – legally reformatted and continued working, but under a new corporate name and trademark. The above-mentioned The Coca-Cola Company in Russia had a division of Coca-Cola HBC Eurasia LLC. In July 2022, it changed its name, according to Forbes, to Multon Partners LLC, launching the production of the Dobry Cola drink. This brand became the leader in the Russian market in 2023, taking a share of 25%. The revenue of Multon Partners LLC, as SPARK notes, amounted to 77 billion rubles, net profit – 10 billion. Forbes emphasizesthat the revenue of Coca-Cola HBC Eurasia LLC in 2021 was almost 94 billion rubles, and net profit was 6.7 billion.

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