Belarusian Supreme Court asks Poland to outlaw Belsat TV trade mark

In Sep­tem­ber, 2014 the Supreme Court of Belarus retried the case Bel­sat­Plus vs Bel­sat TV. Although plain­tiff Andrey Belyak­ou failed to show any new evi­dence, the judges for­bade Bel­sat TV to use its name and trade mark in the ter­ri­to­ry of Belarus and on its web­site.

Andrey Belyak­ou, the own­er of com­pa­ny BEL­SAT­plus, accused tele­vi­sion Bel­sat TV of ille­gal using its trade mark and want­ed the court to ban us from it.

Belarus sent doc­u­ments with a sen­tence con­cern­ing the pro­hi­bi­tion to the Dis­trict Court in War­saw. Tak­ing into con­sid­er­a­tion the pro­vi­sions of the country’s Civ­il Code, the Pol­ish side may put the sen­tence into effect and ban Bel­sat TV from using its trade­mark in Belarus. Before tak­ing the deci­sion, the court in War­saw asked the Pol­ish Pub­lic Tele­vi­sion (Bel­sat TV is a struc­tur­al unit of it)  to present its posi­tion on the case.

 Inter­est­ing­ly,  the Supreme Court did not set­tle Mr Belyak­ou’s claims in Jan­u­ary, 2014. But in June Andrey Fedart­sou, a Deputy Chair of the Supreme Court, ordered to take a sec­ond look to the case. Accord­ing to him, the ver­dict was deliv­ered with­out giv­ing ‘care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion’ to the prob­lem.

It is hard­ly pos­si­ble to put the pro­hi­bi­tion on using Bel­sat TV logo into prac­tice in the ter­ri­to­ry of Belarus because it is reg­is­tered in Poland and the EU, the channel’s direc­tor Agniesz­ka Romaszews­ka Guzy says. For this rea­son the trade mark may be used in satel­lite TV pro­grams and online. Accord­ing to her, the law­suit against Bel­sat TV is polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed, and the ver­dict to ban us from using the trade mark is anoth­er proof of the government’s keep­ing con­trol over the case.

Our TV chan­nel and its domain name were reg­is­tered in Poland. As we do not broad­cast from the ter­ri­to­ry of Belarus the trade mark does not fall with­in its juris­dic­tion. Fur­ther­more, the chan­nel is reg­is­tered as Bel­sat TV; the reg­is­tra­tion name of the uni­tary enter­prise is BEL­SAT­plus (cer­tifi­cate No 190991566).

Mr Belyakou’s com­pa­ny sells satel­lite and cable TV equip­ment. In con­for­mi­ty with the law, one can­not block a trade mark unless it is used in the field giv­en, i.e. broad­cast­ing and pro­duc­tion of TV pro­grams). BEL­SAT­plus has not been engaged in the activ­i­ties men­tioned.