Nothing personal: Chanel and Rolex have registered trademarks with Rospatent
Chanel and Rolex have registered their trademarks with Rospatent. Chanel has already legalized three names by 2034, and it plans to sell perfumes, soaps, bath and shower gels, and other products in Russia. According to experts, trademark registration will also allow companies to protect their intellectual property rights, including in Russian courts. What other companies are registering their brands and are currently testing the ground for a return to the Russian Federation — in the Izvestia article.
What will Chanel and Rolex sell in Russia?
Chanel and Rolex companies have received registration with Rospatent of their trademarks with a validity period until 2034, Izvestia found out. Thus, the French brand, through the Swiss branch of Chanel SARL, registered three names at once: Chanel No. 5, Chance de Chanel and Eclat Premier Chanel. According to the company's cards, it plans to sell a range of its products in Russia under these brands, including cologne, perfumes, perfume water, deodorants, soaps, oils, bath and shower gels, and lotions. The products also include makeup removers, air fragrances, and toiletries.
French luxury brand Chanel announced its withdrawal from Russia in March 2022. At the same time, there was no talk of a final shutdown of operations in our country until 2024, the company continued to rent stores and boutiques, although it did not sell. However, as Izvestia reported, in the spring of 2024, she announced the termination of contracts with landlords. According to media reports, Chanel LLC's revenue in 2022 decreased by 75.6% to 4.5 billion rubles, and the net loss was 1.8 billion rubles against a profit of 1.7 billion rubles a year earlier. By the end of 2024, the company unexpectedly showed a profit of 3.5 billion. This data is confirmed by SPARK-Interfax.
After calling the company's office in Moscow, Izvestia found out that it was working, but they did not comment on the information about trademark registration and return to Russia. The editorial board sent an official request to the company.
The Swiss brand Rolex has also received trademark registration under the same name until 2034. It follows from the card that its copyright holder was the company Rolex Promotions Sa, indicating the headquarters address in Geneva. Its main activity is the manufacture of watches and accessories for them. In 2024, as reported by the media, the company registered trademarks of Air King watches. According to the brand's website, Mercury remains the main distributor in Russia, which has its own boutiques in Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Sochi and St. Petersburg.
Izvestia also sent inquiries to Rolex and Mercury.
As reported by Izvestia, at the moment Rospatent has registered trademarks of Louis Vuitton, Kia, Hyundai and IKEA. Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Chanel, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nissan, Disney, Universal, Procter also continue to apply for their registration. & Gamble, Pepsi, Moët Hennessy and other foreign companies. At the same time, the brands themselves do not publicly declare either the registration of trademarks or the return to work in the Russian Federation.
The editorial board sent a request to Rospatent with a request to comment on the registration of Chanel and Rolex trademarks, as well as other companies.
Escape from fraud
While there are only indirect prerequisites for the return of departed brands to Russia or the arrival of new ones, the lifting of sanctions and political detente may be the trigger, said Pavel Lyulin, vice president of the Union of Shopping Centers.
— At the same time, there is an increase in counterfeiting in the country, including of bygone brands, and there are also precedents when trademarks are not used by the brands themselves. Therefore, there is a wave of re—registrations to protect the trademark from possible unauthorized use," the business representative explained to Izvestia.
According to him, first of all, European companies that left Russia en masse with the beginning of sanctions pressure may return. The most likely candidates are Inditex (Zara, Bershka, etc.), as well as Uniqlo.
— There are two reasons for the trend towards trademark registration by foreign companies. The first is that they really plan to return to the market, and the second is that they want to find legal protection for their trademarks, which they have retained despite their departure from the Russian Federation," Oleg Pavlov, head of the public council at Rospotrebnadzor, PhD, told Izvestia.
According to him, any company is interested in selling only the original product in the countries, and the income from its sale goes to its budget. Trademarks can be extended or updated for these purposes, the expert emphasized.
Georgy Ostapkovich, Director of the Center for Economic Studies at the Higher School of Economics, believes that it is premature to talk about any large-scale return of foreign companies to Russia. At the same time, he believes that the presence of a registered trademark will allow foreign businesses to start working in our country again as soon as it is convenient for them.
— If they do this registration, it means they allow themselves to work in Russia. Now they've sort of staked out a territory here. But what happens next depends on many factors, primarily geopolitical," the expert explained, noting an improvement in the international situation.
According to him, another problem for the return of foreign business may be the difficulty of conducting financial transactions and disconnecting Russian banks from the SWIFT system. However, in his opinion, as soon as this issue is resolved, foreign brands will start returning to Russia en masse.
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