According to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, to which Ukraine has joined, the company name, along with inventions, utility models, industrial designs and trademarks, belongs to industrial property objects. According to Article 8, a company name is protected in all countries that have joined the Convention, without mandatory filing of an application or registration and regardless of whether it is part of a trademark.
If a trademark allows you to distinguish the goods or services of an enterprise, then the brand name allows you to recognize the producers of these goods or services and characterizes the reputation and position of the enterprise in the market. Therefore, it is very important for an enterprise with a good reputation that its business name is not used by other participants in market relations, misleading consumers of its products.
In Ukraine, there is a sufficient legal basis for protection against unlawful use of a company name. This is primarily the current “Regulations on the company” from 06/22/1927. and the Law of Ukraine “On Protection against Unfair Competition” dated June 7, 1996, according to which each owner of an enterprise (and therefore a company name) may claim in court or by decision of the Antimonopoly Committee to stop using the same or similar company name and compensation damages caused by such use.
The Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine” On Entrepreneurship”” dated 05.04.2001 No. 2356-II (Article 2) prohibits the use of the names of the identical names of other objects of entrepreneurial activity included in the relevant register.
The conflict over brand names arises if the interests of their owners collide in the market. As one of the examples of such a conflict, we can name the legal dispute that arose between Alfa Capital Ukraine CJSC and UFK Alfa Capital LLC due to the similarity of the brand name.