The Appeals Chamber of the Ukrainian National Office for Intellectual Property and Innovations has cancelled a decision to register the trademark ACADIA for goods in Class 5. The opposition was filed by a Canadian company that did not own a registered ACADIA trademark in Ukraine but relied on its earlier commercial name rights. The Appeals Chamber issued its decision on September 3, 2026, and it was approved by Order No. 256/2026 of September 11, 2026.
The disputed application had been filed by an Israeli company for products including plant-protection preparations. The Canadian opponent demonstrated that it had already been supplying agricultural products to the Ukrainian market through an official distributor and that the shortened form of its corporate name was known among professional market participants.
Under Ukrainian trademark law, registration may be refused where a designation is identical or confusingly similar to a commercial name known in Ukraine and belonging to another person that acquired rights to that name earlier. The goods or services must also be identical or related.
The Appeals Chamber accepted invoices, shipping documents, a distribution agreement, publications in specialized agricultural media, advertising materials, sales data and evidence of the duration of use. Importantly, the Chamber considered awareness among the relevant professional market sufficient and did not require nationwide recognition among the general public.
The case also confirms that the relevant date for establishing recognition of a commercial name is the filing date of the contested trademark application. Evidence created only after a dispute arises may therefore have limited value where earlier market presence and recognition must be demonstrated.
The opposition was upheld in full, the earlier decision to register the trademark was cancelled, and registration was refused for all claimed Class 5 goods. The decision demonstrates that an unregistered but sufficiently established commercial name may serve as an effective basis for challenging a later trademark application in Ukraine.