Maxim Ali commented for Delovoy Peterburg on the game developer’s dispute with Rospatent over the registration of a trademark resembling an iconic game brand

Saint-Petersburg game developer Exbo North is challenging in the Intellectual Rights Court a partial refusal of Rospatent to register the trademark STALCRAFT, under which the game developer continues to modify Minecraft and develops a multiplayer role-playing action game based on the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe.

According to Maxim Ali, Head of IT/IP Practice at Maxima Legal, the dispute arose because Rospatent refused to register the brand in two of the three classes of the International Classification of Goods and Services (ICCS), claimed by Exbo North. The expert explained to the Delovoy Peterburg newspaper that Rospatent saw confusing similarity with the trademark STARCRAFT of Blizzard, which protects the iconic game. 

At the same time, Maxim praised Exbo North’s arguments to the patent office. “The company recalled that many games use the word “craft” (Minecraft, Warcraft, BattleCraft) as well as the word “star” (StarWars, Star Citizen), explained the relationship between “stal-” and “stalker”. It also explained the serious differences between Starcraft and StalCraft. However, Rospatent approached the issue as expected formally, focusing on the phonetic similarity of the signs and the fact that the services are homogeneous,” – said the specialist of Maxima Legal.

As Maxim Ali pointed out, the Saint-Petersburg game developer found itself in a difficult situation: its application for the brand STALCRAFT is opposed by a strong (and not to say totally different) brand of a computer game, which has become a classic, so the risk of a repeated refusal in court looks quite real.

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