After winning an important $330 million infringement ruling by the Georgian Court of First Instance against Adjarabet and Spribe OÜ, and in response to statements published in the media by the defendants, Nikoloz Gogilidze, Managing Partner of the law firm Mikadze Gegetchkori Taktakishvili LLC which represents Aviator LLC, says that the Aviator brand (the name and the logo) was created in 2016-2017 by Georgian businessman Teimuraz Ugulava.
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Left image: Original logo owned by Aviator LLC, used illegally in Georgia by Adjarabet and Spribe OÜ until January 2024. Right image: Modified logo used internationally by Spribe OÜ, invalidated by Aviator LLC in Georgia. (Graphic: Business Wire)
Mr. Gogilidze shares further history of the ownership of the brand, as detailed in submissions before the court:
In 2018, the "Aviator" trademark was duly registered with the Georgian State Trademark Agency (Sakpatenti; www.sakpatenti.gov.ge/en) by City Loft LLC, company solely owned by Teimuraz Ugulava. In 2018, Mr. Ugulava owned two gambling companies, the land casino Aviator and the online platform Adjarabet. The design of Aviator logo was initially used for the land casino Aviator. At the same time, Adjarabet, which was also owned by Ugulava, launched the crash game Aviator in collaboration with Spribe OÜ. As the creation of the game was financed by Adjarabet (while still under Termuraz Ugulava's ownership), City Loft provided its bare consent for Adjarabet to use the same Aviator logo and airplane image.
Gogilidze says that Aviator crash game was launched on the Adjarabet online casino in January 2019, when the company was still 100% owned by Teimuraz Ugulava. Soon after launching the game, Adjarabet was sold to Flutter Entertainment Plc. None of the agreements executed with Flutter provided any rights to the Aviator trademarks. Moreover, the Agreement provided the list of trademarks transferred to the purchaser as a result of the share sale, which included the brand "Adjarabet", also registered in the State Trademark Agency back at the time, but not the trademark "Aviator."
Spribe OÜ and Adjarabet continued using the logo for the game on the Adjarabet platform in both the Georgian and Armenian markets until January 2024.
Gogilidze says that when Spribe OÜ decided to take the game outside Georgia, it deliberately made a slight modification to the logo and continued to use modified logo outside. At the same time, Spribe OÜ applied for registration of the modified logo in Georgia in 2022 and in the European Union in 2023.
As detailed in the court submissions, in 2022 all intellectual property related to the Aviator trademark and the airplane image was transferred from City Loft to Aviator LLC, a gaming company active in the land casino sector in Georgia. In order to protect its IP rights, Aviator LLC brought the invalidation action before the Georgian courts against, amongst others, Spribe OÜ.
For further information and media queries, please contact Aviator LLC's representatives at info.aviator@mikadze.ge.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240904224604/en/
Contacts:
Nikoloz Gogilidze, info.aviator@mikadze.ge
