The Kommersant newspaper reports that Russian businessman Pavel Baskakov has abandoned attempts to challenge the status of trademarks of the Japanese company Sega, which in the past produced game consoles.
Image source: Sega
Baskakov owns the Dendy and Mega Drive trademarks in Russia and until recently tried to remove legal protection from the Sega brand and logo due to their non-use, and also to register the word Sega as a trademark.
According to Kommersant, on November 13, the intellectual property rights court accepted Baskakov’s waivers of three claims against Sega and its parent company Sega Sammy. Parties “entered into an out-of-court settlement agreement”.
Baskakov also disputed the status of the Sega Racing Classic and SegaPrize trademarks
Lawyers interviewed by Kommersant agree that Sega had a legal advantage in the dispute, but settled the conflict with Baskakov out of court, as it considered this option the most profitable for itself.
Foreign company “even in the case of a strong legal position, it is much cheaper to resolve the issue amicably, bypassing the need to incur costs for legal consultants and representatives in court”.
Since 2022, Baskakov has acted as a plaintiff in 110 cases with claims amounting to 59.8 million rubles – mainly in cases in the field of intellectual property
It is worth noting that Sega has not produced game consoles for more than 20 years (since 2001), however, consoles that allow them to run games for them are still sold in Russia and are in high demand.
As Kommersant reports, in the first nine months of 2024 alone, 433 thousand of these retro consoles were sold in Russia, which is 42% of the Russian console market in units.
If you notice an error, select it with the mouse and press CTRL+ENTER.
