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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
🌐 🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡Domino, Lithuania and Italy. Who really controls the names
📌Part 1. Italian problems
📌Part 2. Someone else's name
Part 3. Two Italian brands, a Ukrainian entrepreneur and a Lithuanian company. Ukrainian courts examined this story for seven years. Now it moves to where Ukrainian jurisdiction ends.
26 July 2012 Donetsk businessman Anton Shukhnin files application No. m201212788 for JACOB COHEN.
25 May 2015 a certificate No. 199402 is issued.
Next in the story of this certificate appears the Lithuanian UAB Domino Grupe.
⚙️ When did the rights transfer? Under what agreement? Was payment made for them? Who signed on behalf of the companies and who is the ultimate beneficiary?
📌 Transferring a trademark to a foreign company is legal. But when the subject of the transaction is a name contested by an Italian manufacturer, the history of such an asset deserves a separate review.
The certificate allows the mark to be entered into the customs register, to stop others' shipments at the border, to sue competitors, to sell licenses. We are checking whether such applications were filed with customs, whether other importers' goods were detained, and whether claims were made against them. There is no confirmation of that so far. Answers will show whether the registration was a formality or an instrument of market influence.
A representative who registers the principal's name. On its own website Domino calls itself the official representative of Stefano Ricci in Ukraine. The Paris Convention protects the trademark owner from an agent or representative who registers it in their own name without permission. Therefore we are interested in distribution, agency and license agreements: whether they granted the right to register and whether the Italians knew about the Ukrainian applications at the time they were filed.
The financial trail. A trademark is an asset. It is transferred, valued, licensed, and shown in financial reports. Did the transfer of certificate No. 199402 have a price? Were payments made for the use of the rights? We do not claim that violations occurred. We are establishing whether the transactions took place and what documents support them.
Investigation in the European Union. The Bureau is working together with lawyers for Jacob Cohen Company S.p.A. In the near future we will receive materials from the Italian side: the history of the rights, the presence or absence of permissions, and relations with Ukrainian and Lithuanian counterparties. Separately we are checking whether the Jacob Cohën and Stefano Ricci histories share a common mechanism.
In Lithuania we are studying the owners, managers, changes and financial statements of UAB Domino Grupe and its links with Ukrainian companies. Lithuania is in the EU. If specific actions on the territory of the Union are established, the case will be heard by a European court, and its decision will apply in all member states. Customs in any EU country detains a shipment at the request of the rights holder. A supply chain through Europe leaves traces in declarations, and we are looking for those traces as well.
Materials that provide grounds will be forwarded to the competent authorities of Ukraine, Lithuania and Italy. Anton Shukhnin has been sent a request regarding the history of the registrations, the role of UAB Domino Grupe and the legal basis for using Italian names. We will publish his response in full.
This story began with two surnames on labels. Twelve years ago the application was filed expecting it would not go beyond Kyiv. It did. Now lawyers in Veneto, registries in Vilnius and EU customs databases are dealing with it. These institutions work slowly, but their memory is long, and they do not forget cases or names.
In Ukraine it was possible to register someone else's name. In Europe one will have to answer for it.
📁 Documents from Italy and Lithuania will be published as soon as we receive and verify them.
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