Supreme Court outlaws Belsat TV channel name

The Supreme Court of Belarus has obliged the Polish Television today to stop using the Belsat trademark when broadcasting to the territory of Belarus.

The trademark is also banned from the use on Belsat’s web-page.

The court also ruled to exact 9 998 800 Belarusian roubles of the judicial costs from the defendant, Radio Svaboda reports.

The lawsuit against Telewizja Polska SA, which owns the Belsat trademark, came from the owner of a Belarusian company Belsat Plus Andrej Bielakou in May last year.

According to the entrepreneur, his company, which sells the satellite and cable television equipment, allegedly suffered losses due to the similarity of the name and the one of the TV channel. On 27 January 2014 the panel of judges of the Supreme Court denied Andrej Bielakou’s lawsuit, because the claimant had not provided evidence to the violation of his exclusive trademark rights.

However, in five months after that the Presidium of the Supreme Court made the decision to send Andrej Bielakou’s lawsuit against the Belsat TV channel for reconsideration due to alleged imperfect examination of the evidence in the case.

On 2 and 3 September in the new court’s proceeding the representatives of the parties once again outlined their standings to the panel of judges. Andrej Bielakou claimed that Telewizja Polska SA has violated his rights for the Belsat trademark, while the TV channel’s representatives prove that the channel had no commercial activities in Belarus, while in Poland the trademark is registered in accordance to all legislative requirements.

In her pleading speech on the morning on 3 September the representative of the prosecutor’s office claimed that she considered Bielakou’s standing to be well-grounded and asked the judges to satisfy the claim.