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Trademark attorney in Bulgaria

  • Mr.Atanas Kostov - intellectual property attorney in Bulgaria.

     

     

    Patent and trademark attorney in Bulgaria. Internet attorney in Bulgaria. Blockchain attorney in Bulgaria. Copyright attorney in Bulgaria.

     

    The specialist in intellectual property - Mr.Atanas Kostov graduated the Law department of the Plovdiv University in 1999 with a Master's degree. He specializes in the field of civil law in Bulgaria. Intellectual property has been provoking him from the very beginning of his career. Currently he is a consultant and author in the publishing house "Labour and Law", Sofia and magazines "Finance and Law" Property and Law "," Law and Society " and " Intellectual Property "(official publication of the Patent Office in Sofia ) and in those editions were published his over 50 articles in the field of intellectual property and in particular copyright, trademark and unfair competition. Mr.Kostov is professional representative to the Bulgarian Patent Office for all industrial property objects: trademarks, patents (inventions), utility models, industrial designs, geographical indications, plant varieties and animal breeds. Mr. Atanas Kostov is an European patent attorney(European trademark attorney) in the field of trademarks and industrial designs to the EUIPO, Alicante, Spain, and he is officially on the list of industrial property professional representatives to this organization under the number №56838. Mr.Atanas Kostov it is a member of AIPPI (The International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property). In 2017 Mr.Atanas Kostov was nominated for lawyer of the year in Bulgaria.

    At the end of 2005. Mr. Kostov as patent attorney was invited as a consultant in a working group to the legislative committee of the National Assembly of Republic of Bulgaria under the direction of Doctor of Juridical Sciences Mr. George Sarakinov where they are made recent changes to the Law on copyright and related rights. In the same year he became the author of the electronic publishing house "Labour and Law" Sofia concerning copyright contracts. Currently lawyer Atanas Kostov is a member of the Advisory Board on issues related to copyright and intellectual property of the Ministry of Culture in Bulgaria.

    In November 2010 Mr.Atanas Kostov issued his first book "Copyright hypothesis", published by the Publishing House "Feneya." The book is aimed at giving practical guidance and advice not only to practitioners, but also to all artists from various artistic professions (musicians, photographers, actors, painters, architects, computer specialists, etc.) who wish to gain a clear idea for ways to protect their copyrights.

    In May 2011. publishing house "Ciela" launched the second book of Mr.Atanas Kostov, under the heading "Opposition to the trademark". This book is revealing the new procedure for registration refusal on the relatives grounds, according the last amendments of the Bulgarian Law on Marks and Geographical Indications from 10.03.2011. The book aims to be practically useful to a wide range of lawyers, experts in the Patent Office, representatives of industrial property, commercial entities, students and citizens to give better clarity on the scope for prevention, which gives the opposition. Most of the material in the book is a synthesis of theory and practice, mostly of EUIPO and the European Court of Justice, mainly due to the lack of national practice for the moment. This approach was chosen to shed light on the specifics of the procedure not only nationally, but also at European level.

    In 2012 Publishing "Feneya" published the third book of Mr.Kostov - "Intellectual property on Internet". The book tries to make a comment and at the same time to propose solutions how to deal with problems concerning copyright, trademarks, domain names and other business identifiers in Bulgaria used in the Internet. The author's aim is to assure the reader how important is nowadays to know legal means, concerning intellectual property that serve for the prevention of online business models, as well as those concerning copyright, based on the web. The significance of the topic is related to purely pragmatic and commercial motives on proper structuring and protection of the online entrepreneurship. The book provides many examples of national and international case law concerning intellectual property rights on the web, through which it becomes possible to visualize commented theme and it becomes the most accessible not only for lawyers but for businesses as well as representatives of the creative industries, without any claim to offer ready solutions, but with the option to give guidance to reflect on dealing with similar cases.

    In May 2015, “Labor and Law” Publishing House released the fourth book by Mr.Atanas Kostov - "Trademarks and Copyright on the Internet". The book presents a detailed problem of intellectual property and its protection on the Internet. It examines the issues and offers expert solutions to issues related to copyright, trademarks, domains, and other business identifiers that are used on the web. The book reviews the legal framework and analyzes the accumulated case law both in Bulgaria and in the Court of Justice of the European Union.

    As a lawyer who works in the field of copyright and trademarks, as well as a patent attorney and trademark attorney in Bulgaria, Mr. Atanas Kostov leads one of the most interesting and controversial cases in Bulgaria related to copyright, trademarks, patents, industrial designs and unfair competition, which practically built the modern jurisprudence in this area. Lawyer Kostov is a consultant in the field of copyright and "free set Software Foundation" Europe (Free software foundation Europe), of open source systems under the GPL (General public license) and of concluded in connection with this licensing agreements (contracts). In this context Mr.Kostov as a lawyer has long-term deals with the problems of the so-called "Internet law" protection of domain names as trademarks, copyright protection of the content of websites, creation of common conditions for them, fraudulent practices and consumer rights on the Internet and etc.

    As a Bulgarian patent and trademark attorney Mr.Atanas Kostov has extensive experience in litigation before the Commission for Protection of Competition (CPC) and the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) related to disputes concerning unfair competition against public procurement, antitrust law and agreements, business concentration and monopoly market position.

  • Why is the court practice concerning disputes between domains and trademarks in Bulgaria illegal?

    Why is the court practice concerning disputes between domains and trademarks in Bulgaria illegal?

     

    1. Introduction :

    I would like to start this presentation by noting the objective fact of reality that the largest company in the world (as I now), whose business is multi-billion - "AMAZON", is based online. Its shares are traded on the stock exchange in New York, London and Hong Kong. Behind the website AMAZON.com is the corporation "Amazon.com" Inc. This company also owns the American national, international (registered under the Madrid Agreement and its protocol) and European trademarks AMAZON.com . The trademark in question is definitely a domain! Its shares, according to my information (I admit it is incomplete), are not traded on the Sofia(Bulgarian) stock exchange, nor are cases related to it heard in the Sofia courts, but it is still the most expensive trademark in the world representing a domain. I share these facts because of the particularly controversial view of the Bulgarian court of the 21st century (object of research in this article) that "the domain cannot and is not a trademark" and that "the bad faith registration of a domain is not a commercial activity". Sounds absurd to you? For me as well.