A Novosibirsk ice cream factory wants to start making ice cream products named Like and Twitter next year, but first, the factory has to get approvals from the Federal Service for Intellectual Property to patent the two popular brands, a news report said Thursday.
The factory is planning to request the patents under the classes for ice cream and confectionery goods, company marketing director Dmitry Suvorov told Izvestia. Suvorov said they are only looking to register the brand names and don't have any plans to imitate the Twitter logotype or Facebook's Like symbol on their product packaging.
Twitter has registered its brand in Russia as a telecommunications service. Several companies have already registered the term Like as a brand, including in the alcohol and pet food categories, but not as a confectionery product.
Although there are no apparent legal barriers for the Novosibirsk-based factory to get the patents, experts doubt that the federal service will give it permission for both of the brands. The Twitter brand is considered an unlikely candidate to become the name for an ice cream product because it is a direct reproduction of a social network's name and would confuse potential customers.
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