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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
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Shukhnin and Domino: what’s behind someone else’s name
📌 Part 1. Italian problems
A trademark certificate by itself doesn’t sell anything. It opens doors: to customs, to suppliers, to court against competitors. So in the second part we’re interested in who could have used those doors and what passed through them.
We are in contact with lawyers from Jacob Cohen Company S.p.A. and are waiting for materials from them. The Ukrainian certificate No. 199402 has already been invalidated by the court.
Now the question is different: did Domino have contracts, licenses, or authority from the brand owner, and do the documents shown in Ukraine match what was actually agreed with the Italians?
⚖️ Defending himself in the Pecherskyi Court, Shukhnin referred to the Solomianskyi District Court decision of 23 June 2016, which allowed expanding the list of goods covered by the certificate. In other words, someone not only registered the foreign name, but also got it expanded by court to new goods. Who was the other party in that case and whether the Italian company knew about it is something we are checking.
A Lithuanian company. In the JACOB COHEN case one of the defendants is UAB Domino Grupe. A Lithuanian company by itself does not necessarily infringe anything.
⚙️ But Lithuania is in the EU, and that raises concrete questions. Who controlled the company in those years? On what basis were rights transferred to it? What operations did it carry out: import, trade, brand management?
Where the goods came from. If a chain calls itself a representative of an Italian brand, it’s logical to identify the supplier, the channel, and the import conditions.
✔️ Did all the products come through authorized channels? Do the documents of origin match the actual flows of goods?
✔️Were the disputed registrations used in dealings with customs, suppliers, or competitors?
✔️Why would a seller of Italian jeans need a Ukrainian certificate for an Italian name?
A legitimate distributor doesn’t need such a certificate: the goods come from Italy with the manufacturer’s documents. A certificate is needed by someone who wants to put that name on the goods themselves.
According to materials from the patent office, Shukhnin justified his position by using the designation with 2011, including for clothing manufacturing. Therefore one of the hypotheses the bureau is working on is that rights to the marks might have been needed to produce jeans under the names Jacob Cohën and Stefano Ricci in Ukraine or to have them made in China.
This is a hypothesis, not an established fact. We currently have no evidence of manufacturing. But this is the first line we are checking: through fabric and trim suppliers, customs declarations, and documents of origin.
Article 229 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine punishes intentional unlawful use of a trademark if material damage is caused on a significant scale. If documents confirm illegal commercial use of the designations, they could be grounds to contact law enforcement. With other evidence, issues under article 190 (fraud), 358 (forgery of documents or their use), 212 (tax evasion), and also 201-3 (smuggling of goods, criminal liability under 1 of July 2024 in cases exceeding 7,57 million UAH) may arise. These are directions of qualification, each of which requires separate facts.
European jurisdiction. In Italy unlawful use of another’s trademark means a court injunction, seizure of goods, and recovery of damages, and if a criminal element is present a criminal case with penalties up to six years. The main question is whether actions took place on Italian territory or whether there are other bases for Italian jurisdiction. Therefore we are checking transnational operations, not just registries.
☑️ We will send Anton Shukhnin a request regarding registrations, authorities to use the brands, the role of affiliated companies, and the origin of the goods. We will publish his position.
Two Italian houses spent years litigating in Ukraine over their own surnames. Now we want to know in which workshop those surnames were sewn onto jeans. To be continued...
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