Russian Band in Trademark Dispute

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/03/world/europe/russian-band-in-trademark-dispute.html

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A member of the band Pussy Riot said Friday that the band’s name should not be used for commercial gain after it was revealed that the wife of the band’s lawyer had applied for a patent to register the name as a trademark. “This simply shocks me; I am completely surprised,” the band member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, who was released from prison last month on bail, told the radio station Kommersant FM. She said she and her two band mates, who remain in prison, had agreed that they should protect their intellectual property rights, but opposed commercial use of their name. The lawyer, Mark Feygin, denied that he or his wife, who owns a film production company, were trying to profit from the band, and he said they filed the application in April at the request of the three band members “to prevent someone from producing condoms and pornography films” featuring the band’s name. But Russia’s patent office rejected the trademark application. Also on Friday, Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev said again that he thought the jailed band members should be released, The Associated Press reported.