The latest stage of the Russian trademark battle between Danone and PepsiCo has been postponed.
A hearing due to take place on Friday at Rospatent, Russia’s bureau dealing with intellectual property rights, has been put back, Danone confirmed today (31 August).
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Wimm-Bill-Dann, PepsiCo’s local dairy processing subsidiary in Russia, had asked Rospatent to remove trademark rights held by Danone for the French company’s yoghurt brand Activia.
WBD asked Russia’s trademark watchdog “to cancel Activia’s registration in some product classes that are not in use”.
The move followed Danone’s complaint to Rospatent that the packaging for WBD yoghurt brand Bio Max was too similar to that used for Activia. Rospatent turned down Danone’s complaint two weeks ago.
Danone has collected evidence of how it was using the Activia trademark and a spokesperson said today that Rospatent needed time to review the material.
The spokesperson said a new date for the hearing had not been published.
