Yota Devices and PocketBook settle patent litigation

    Yesterday, RBC announced a preliminary settlement of the patent dispute between Yota Devices and PocketBook. RBC

    previously reportedabout the lawsuit in the Moscow Arbitration Court of Yota Devices, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands, against the PocketBook website with a ban on using its trademark, by which it meant a two-screen smartphone. The defendants were Batmore Capital, also from the British Virgin Islands, and the Russian company Canonier. The first one is registered at pocketbook-int.com, and the second is selling readers with screens based on electronic ink (e-ink). Then the general director of Yota Devices Vladislav Martynov through a press service told RBC that Yota Devices would not demand monetary compensation from sellers of PocketBook cases, and the lawsuit was purely “ideological” in nature.

    Subsequently, the claim for the unlawful use of the trademark was replaced by a claim for violation of a patent for utility model No.141707 , and Batmore Capital was excluded from the list of defendants. A patent examination was appointed in the case, the defendant tried to challenge the appointment of the examination on formal grounds, but his appeal was rejected and after the decision to resume the proceedings the parties announced the conclusion of a settlement agreement, which should be approved at today's court hearing.

    On the site pocketbook-int.com, before the dispute, it was possible to order a PocketBook CoverReader case with an additional e-ink screen built into it. The case is designed for Samsung Galaxy S4 - one of the most popular Android smartphones in the world: since April 2013, about 40 million of such devices have been sold in the world for the first six months of sales.



    At the time of this writing, a case for the Samsung Galaxy S4 was not offered on this site, but it can be assumed that it will be available again in the near future.

    This case is noteworthy all the more so since patent disputes over inventions and utility models are still rare in Russia, and it shows that the most active players in the IT / telecom market are able to use this legal tool to protect their interests. We add that the post of vice president of intellectual property at Yota Devices is held by Dmitry Platonov, who previously headed the IT department at the Skolkovo Intellectual Property Center, and earlier supervised the patent work in Akronis.

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