A trademark dispute in Kazakhstan involving the Uzbek appliance brand Premier has resulted in a court finding that trademark rights were exercised in bad faith. The dispute involved Uzbek manufacturer Premier Electrotech and a Kazakh individual who had registered several Premier trademarks in Kazakhstan.
The Kazakh trademark owner had also included the Premier mark in the national Customs IP Register. Customs subsequently suspended the release of 262 washing machines imported by Technoks Astana, after which the trademark owner brought infringement proceedings seeking to prohibit their sale and recover approximately KZT 1.1 million in damages.
The Astana Specialized Interdistrict Economic Court rejected the infringement claim. The court found that the products had been manufactured by Premier Electrotech and that references to Premier formed part of the manufacturer’s corporate identity rather than constituting infringing use of the claimant’s trademark.
The court also examined the commercial relationship between the parties. Evidence showed that Premier Electrotech had distribution arrangements in Kazakhstan before the dispute arose, while the claimant himself had participated in the sale of Uzbek-manufactured Premier products and did not manufacture products under the mark independently.
Relying on the Civil Code provisions requiring good-faith exercise of rights and prohibiting abuse of rights, the court concluded that the registrations had been used to restrict supplies by other distributors. According to the decision as reported by Asia IP, the claimant had copied and registered the Uzbek manufacturer’s mark in an attempt to establish himself as the exclusive distributor in Kazakhstan.
Subsequent proceedings led to the invalidation of two Premier trademark registrations. The case demonstrates that, although Kazakhstan largely follows a first-to-file trademark system, formal registration alone may not protect a rights holder where the circumstances indicate bad faith or abuse of trademark rights.