Can you use or register a symbol related to the russian military aggression against Ukraine?

Short answer: Not really. Even if you could use such a marking, it would most probably bring no positive result due to the hostile nature of the symbols and consequent entirely justified utter unacceptance of such characters in Ukrainian society.

Long answer: On May 25th, 2022, the Verkhovna Rada, the legislative assembly of Ukraine, adopted the Law of Ukraine “On the prohibition of the propaganda of the russian Nazi totalitarian regime and the russian federation’s, the aggressor state, military aggression against Ukraine, and the symbols of the military invasion of the russian Nazi totalitarian regime in Ukraine” according to the initiative of the parliamentarians of Ukraine and taking into account a motion received by the parliament from the President of Ukraine.

The act of legislation draws up two groups of symbols prohibited from use:

• letters “Z” and “V” in Latin scripts, both used standing alone, apart from any word, or as visually highlighted replacements for their corresponding Cyrillic counterparts (“З”, “С”, “В”, and “Ф”) in specific words,

• emblems, coats of arms, or any other symbols of the armed forces of the russian federation, including its ground forces, aerospace forces, navy, strategic rocket forces, airborne forces, special operations forces, any other related military branches and divisions, and command or control bodies.

According to this Law of Ukraine, the following cases of application of the symbols of the military invasion of the russian totalitarian regime in Ukraine are considered illegal activity:

1. on publicly available surfaces or drives, such as indoor and outdoor advertisement boards, vehicles, printed materials (posters, flyers, postcards, etc.), clothing and so forth;

2. in advertisements published on television and radio broadcasting, in mass media and on the Internet;

3. in social media posts and messages;

4. in copyrighted works, including movies, television broadcasts and video blog entries, created after Feb 24th, 2022.

But what does that have to do with the regulations protecting trade marks?

First, the prohibition imposed by the act of legislation does not apply to the use of such symbols if used in the trade marks registered in Ukraine or internationally before Feb 24th, 2022, including the ones considered well known according to the Art. 6bis of the 1883 Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, if appropriately used in accordance with the existing regulations concerning the protection of trade marks.

Nevertheless, due to the strong association of these symbols with the russian military aggression against Ukraine, our legal experts would strongly advise against the use of said letters and emblems for branding and goods or services promotion, especially with them being the dominant elements of the corresponding trade and service marks. We should point out that there are numerous matters of litigation on the matters of defamation because of the alleged relation of certain businesses to the aggressor state, which is becoming even more intolerable in Ukrainian society with every passing day of the war (e.g., case 910/15278/21, decided on Jun 07th, 2022).

And yet, these symbols are currently not going to give an unambiguous and univocal refusal to the grant of the registration of the trade or service mark because the reform has not yet been fully implemented, as it is yet to extend to the regulations concerning trade marks. Also, to this day, no court of law matter on the issues of protection of such trade marks has yet been decided.

Although the facts noted, we are sure that the Ukrpatent, the authority serving as the Patent and Trademark Office of Ukraine, would not be willing to grant the registration of such trade or service marks on the ground of public morality rules nonconformance, and such refusal would probably be upheld and thus confirmed by the courts of law.

Picture: Armin Kübelbeck 2022, public domain.