Sensible Request for Protection

Over the last couple of years we have regularly observed trials between known brand owners and mostly local manufacturers that design their production to imitate market leaders and confuse customers.

Parasitic copying, likelihood, distorting practice… This is not a complete list of definitions as a description. But let us move ahead a little bit.

Advertising productions, TV channels and advertisers as such are treating so-called compliance tests with increasing seriousness before launching information campaigns. What is the reason for such caution? Recent history has examples when false and misleading statements about quality, function, usage of products in question costed a lot.

Non-observance of the set rules framed above comes under the umbrella of the term “unfair competition”.

In Ukraine it covers a wide array of violations, i.e. dissemination of misleading information, infringement of honest rules and customs, unlawful designation use, discrediting an undertaking, achievement of undue preferences in competition. All of these distort the competition landscape and can be very expensive in terms of both finance and reputation. From the rights owner perspective there is obvious sense in initiating protection.

The complete coverage of recent Ukrainian unfair competition practice has been hailed with enthusiasm by our contributors. The outcomes of the latest cases clearly demonstrate that this is a huge area of work for officials, brand owners, their marketing specialists as well as legal advisors.

Happy reading,
Olga Usenko