Doubinsky & Osharova has successfully represented Jack Daniel's before the Ukrainian Supreme Court, which, on May 28, 2020, upheld the company's cassation appeal to invalidate the trademark certification in Ukraine for "Black Jack" (and the certification for its Cyrillic-spelled variant).
According to Doubinsky & Osharova, "the dispute started in 2017 after Jack Daniel’s filed a statement of claim to the Commercial Court of Kyiv to invalidate the said title documents, basing on earlier registered and world-famous trademark 'JACK DANIEL’S'. The case was considered by courts repeatedly. In 2018, the Commercial Court of Kyiv established the similarity of the disputed trademarks and that it could be misleading, and therefore satisfied the plaintiff's claim. The Northern Commercial Court of Appeal agreed with these findings but dismissed the lawsuit [because] the statute of limitations had expired. By overturning the ruling of the court of appeal, the Supreme Court stated that the beginning of the statute of limitations for filing a lawsuit with such a claim could not automatically coincide with the date of publication of the information [about] the registration of the trademark."
Doubinsky & Osharova’s team was supervised by Managing Partner Michael Doubinsky and included Partners Anton Koval and Victoria Sopilnyak, Attorney-at-Law Nikolai Koval, and Lawyer George Gabeliya.
