MOSCOW, June 2 . The Moscow Arbitration Court, following a lawsuit filed by the Dutch company Minikim Holland B.V., which owns the rights to the Love is… comics and a series of related trademarks, recovered 150,000 rubles from Belevsky Produkt LLC, Tula, a manufacturer of marshmallows and other sweets.
As follows from the published decision of the court, the court also collected 60 thousand rubles from the supplier Belochka Trading House LLC and 30 thousand rubles from the individual entrepreneur Valentina Pendzhoyan, the owner of a store in Moscow. These amounts are compensation for violation of the plaintiff's rights to his intellectual property The court of first instance partially satisfied the claim — Minikim Holland demanded to recover 500 thousand rubles from the defendants jointly and severally.
As the court found, the defendants produced and sold Tula gingerbread, on which elements similar to the image and trademarks of the plaintiff were applied. In particular, the gingerbread had the inscriptions «Love is…» and «When together…, together…, forever!», as well as a picture in which a boy and a girl, holding hands, tenderly look at each other .
The court noted such, for example, similar features of the boy: “a large head relative to the body; the color (black) and shape of the boy’s hair; the same pose (eyes are directed towards the girl, the right hand holds the girl’s hand, the left remains out of sight) … the same shape mouth; facial expression. The similarity of the girl, the general composition, the color palette and the meaning of the phrases are also emphasized.
At the same time, the court rejected the argument of the defendant Trading House «Belochka» that «the plaintiff is a foreign company, the funds required by him will have to go to an unfriendly country, which by its actions poses a significant threat to the public interests of Russia.» As the court noted, «this circumstance in itself does not prevent the protection of the exclusive right of the copyright holder.» However, the court reduced the amount of compensation, taking into account extenuating circumstances. For example, the fact that defendant Penjoyan, who managed to sell three gingerbread in two weeks, disposed of the remaining seven after receiving Minikim Holland's claim.
Love is…, which later became an international bestseller, was created in the late 1960s by New Zealand artist Kim Cazali (1941-1997). First published in the 1970s in the Los Angeles Times, the comics became very popular, and became even more popular when they appeared on the wrappers of Turkish chewing gums of the same name. After Casali's death, comics continue to be created by her companion from the UK, artist Bill Asprey.