The Court of First Instance in the country of Georgia ruled in favor of Aviator LLC’s copyright and trademark infringement claim last August 20. The claim was against the gaming company Spribe OÜ and Georgia’s largest online casino, Adjarabet. Flutter Entertainment Plc, a UK-based company, owns it. The court found copyright and trademark infringement, invalidating the trademark registrations due to bad faith and copyright violations. It awards the claimant damages amounting to $330 million.
Nikoloz Gogilidze, managing partner of the law firm Mikadze Gegetchkori Taktakishvili LLC, representing Aviator LLC, expressed satisfaction with the court’s ruling. He emphasized their commitment to aggressively protecting their client’s intellectual property against unlicensed use on international gaming platforms.
Aviator LLC owns multiple trademark registrations for the Aviator graphic logo used in gambling services. These include online and physical casino services and gambling. Spribe OÜ used the image and brand name Aviator in its flagship game. It was offered in Georgia by www.adjarabet.com, an online gambling platform. Spribe OÜ registered its own Aviator trademarks in 2021-2022 for computer games and gambling services. The claimant argued that these infringed on their original trademark.
Aviator LLC filed a lawsuit against Spribe OÜ. It was claiming invalidation of the trademarks based on two grounds. First is the trademarks were registered in bad faith as SPRIBE OU knew about the existence of rights of the claimant. At the same time, was using the image of the claimant and trademark for its cash game. Second, trademark registrations violated the copyright.
Aviator LLC requested to put a stop to online gambling platform www.adjacent.com in the same lawsuit from using the name Aviator and the image belonging to the claimant and asked for damages for earlier illegal use.
