Life is an attractive word. Who does not know the glossy US magazine? It enjoys a worldwide popularity, partly thanks to the choice of title.

Unrelated to the magazine, there is a publishing house Zhizn in Russia, which translates as "life" in English. The publishing house registered part of its name as a trade mark in classes 16, 41 and 42 and naturally has been known as Zhizn since then.

The publishing house has been publishing a newspaper called Life aimed at an unsophisticated audience. It is an all-Russian edition and it informs its readers of simple stories, the problems of celebrities, love and crime stories, etc. Not surprisingly given that it had a catchy title and easily digestible topics, its daily circulation grew quickly to more than 2 million copies. Russia is an extensive country so, in order to have nationwide coverage, the publishing house authorized another publishing house in the Far East (Molodoy Dalnevostochnik – meaning "Young Far Easter") to publish the newspaper Life in the Far East under a licence. After a period of flawless cooperation, both publishing houses crossed swords and the publishing house Life discontinued the agreement with the Young Far Easter because the latter had not observed the terms of the agreement.

Life sent a letter to Easter in which it urged that Easter should stop using the trade mark Life. Easter did not respond and instead started a different newspaper entitled The Real Life. The circulation of the new newspaper quickly reached 15,000 daily copies. The owner of the trade mark filed a suit claiming infringement of his trade mark rights.

According to the law, the use of a trade mark or a confusingly similar sign in respect of the goods for which the trade mark has been registered or similar goods shall be regarded as infringement of the rights of the right owner. Life argued that Easter violated his rights by using a confusingly similar designation. Life also stated that the defendant had much less money to pay for production of the newspaper, so he was riding on the popularity of the Life's trade mark and thus acquired additional unfair advantages in his business activities. The court agreed with the claimant that the defendant did not provide an adequate explanation of his behaviour in response to the suit.

Though the confusing similarity may seem obvious to the unprejudiced eye, the court ordered an expert opinion which confirmed that the designations Life and Real Life were confusingly similar. The result was that the court recognized that the defendant violated the rights of the trade mark owner. The court ordered the infringement to stop and ruled that the infringer should pay compensation to the claimant of more than $30,000. According to the Russian law compensation may be claimed in cases where it is difficult or impossible to calculate the damage suffered by the offended party. The claimant can choose whether to ask the court to award damages or compensation and the amount is determined by the court though the claimant may express his wishes in that regard.

The relative simplicity of the case demonstrates however that trade mark rights may be routinely enforced and that the vast expanse of the country (which covers eight time zones) is not an obstacle to the reinstatement of justice. So, Life goes on but is now more careful in choosing associates.