In our last edition we mentioned the story regarding the “Nemiroff” brand. We had made a mistake in our last edition. The brand “Nemiroff” doesn’t belong to “Grand Tobacco” Company. It belongs to “International Masis Tabak”. On the other han,d it’s difficult to differentiate the two companies because in fact the companies are not “very separate” from each other.
This story in fact, is very entangled. Thus to make it simple, it’s worth starting with the persons involved. There are three- “International Masis Tabak” (IMT), “Brafield Trust Rag” (BTR), and “RA Agency on Intellectual Property” (AIP) (former license department). To our surprise, this state body was most willing to provide us with information. IMT told us that they don’t find it expedient to provide us with information before the court trial. According to our sources, the “Harutyutyan and Partners” juridical firm protects the interests of BTR. We did not succeed in finding out any information from this firm either. Therefore, we only based on the information provided by the AIP. And the contents of this information are the following: at the end of 2005, BTR brought a law suit against IMT on “Prohibiting the Implementation of the Contract and Using the Brand Name.” The brand name is “Nemiroff,” better yet, the name of the cigarette. IMT has brought a law suit against RA AIP on considering the decision about recognizing the brand name as invalid. According to the court decision, as of January 19, 2006, the first case procedure was cancelled because it depends on the results of the first case. Back in August 2000, the AIP registered the brand name “Nemiroff,” the owner of which is BTR. The registration of the brand name was done for alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. On November 27, 2003 and November 12, 2004 the IMT, has appealed to register the brand name “Nemiroff” for cigarettes and tobacco products. The appeals were accepted, according to the AIP, the products were different (vodka is vodka, cigarette is cigarette) in this case this is allowed by legislation.
On November 17, 2005, the BTR sent an appeal letter to the AIP to consider the brand name “Nemiroff” exclusive in Armenia. The appeal was approved. The brand name was considered exclusive for “vodka”. This is when the drama began.
In order to have a better understanding of the situation, we must understand what “exclusive” means. When the brand name is considered exclusive the owner has more powers. According to Article 4 of RA law on product brand names, “it is forbidden to duplicate the name of exclusive brands in Armenia, or translating them.” Clause “B” of the same article gives more details about the restriction. It is forbidden to duplicate brand names without the permission of the owner.
Therefore, it doesn’t matter whether the brand name is considered exclusive for vodka or a coffee cup. Without the owner’s permission, no party has a right to duplicate the exclusive brand name. It means that the IMT should have asked the permission of BTR prior to producing cigarettes named “Nemiroff.” It is obvious that the IMT does not have such permission, and as the BTR demands that the IMT ceases the use of the brand name, the IMT has no other choice than to apply to the court. The company is going to do its best to consider the exclusive brand name “Nemiroff” invalid.
The trial is scheduled for February 21st, that is when it will be decided if “Nemiroff” cigarettes will be sold or not.
And now the next part of the issue. Why is everything so entangled? Why couldn’t Brafield consider its brand exclusive a long time ago? They couldn’t do it in 2000 because the law was adopted in 2002, but why wasn’t there any application at that time? First of all, the brand for each business is a very important factor for any international business. People work for years just to make sure that their company brand is popular. If you have noticed, international companies often advertise their brand name rather than the product. For example, BMW is also involved in the production and sale of minor items (pens, lighters, eyewear and others) besides automobiles. BMW does not need to advertise all those products separately because all those products belong to BMW, which has a very high reputation. Many try to benefit from the long-term activity of others. However, no one does it in a very evident way. They mainly fake the items due to the ignorance of consumers. Besides the “Panasonic” brand sometimes you might find a brand name “Panasoniq” and the quality and price may be low. There are also alternatives- “Soni” instead of “Sony”, “Phillibs” instead of “Phillips” and others. There is a great fight against the phonies fakers. However, our Armenian consumers gradually imitate those minor phony tactics.
Regarding “Nemiroff”, the imitator did not wish to change any letter in the brand name. The IMT just decided to use the brand name as is because of a loophole in the legislation. In fact, years ago Brafield did not appeal to be exclusive because no international company would ever think that an Armenian producer would steal the brand name from them.
We are not the ones to find out what the purpose of the IMT was. Perhaps the golden letters of “Nemiroff” on the cigarette pack were only written due to good taste. Ours is different, however, the products of other buisnesses are more different Let’s just add that the sponsor of the boxing championship broadcasted on the first Russian channel is not our cigarette producing company.
This cigarette is still being sold (this is not an advertisement, this is just a note)….