Philip Morris strikes back

The world now frowns at smokers. Yet Russia remains one of the countries with the highest smoking rate. Many tobacco companies have a presence in Russia and strive to strengthen their hold on Russian smokers. Philip Morris is one such company. It filed to register the figurative trade mark.

The applicant appealed the decision to the examiner at the Chamber of Patent Disputes. The Chamber sided with the applicant: it confirmed that figures 1847 are registrable in this case in respect of the goods of Class 34. The motivation of the Chamber was interesting. It pointed out that the sequence of figures implies some symbolic date sending the viewer back into history. So, they cannot be considered as separate non-protectable figures. The Chamber of Patent Disputes plunged in its arguments into history, pointing out that the story of the now world renowned company stems from the moment when a British subject Philip Morris opened a shop in 1847 in London trading in tobacco and Turkish cigarettes made by hand. During many years it remained the leading producer of tobacco products in Britain. It launched the famous Marlboro cigarettes in 1924.

From 1956 onwards it operated as a multinational company. Now it has developed a new line of tobacco products marked with a designation containing the number 1847.

Hence, this has been a peculiar situation where definitely unregistrable designation has been registered with consideration for the submitted information. The element 1847 is a specific symbol that reflects a historic event which at the same time designates a line of tobacco products.

The Chamber of Patent Disputes also considered that element 1847 is already protected under international registrations 239268 and 238397 (in Norway), 562517 (in Switzerland) and 5822697 (OHIM), in the name of the applicant in Class 34. So, this element 1847 unites those goods in a line of products which extends to the Russian Federation.