A case from our practice

The Ukrainian office found the HRV logo of the Ukrainian brand HARVEST confusingly similar to the «R. V.» mark of the fashion house Roger Vivier and to another RV monogram. We filed a reasoned response, and the office decided to register the logo for the full list in classes 9, 18 and 25.

The case in brief

• Sign: a monogram logo of the letters H, R and V, black and white; Ukrainian application No. m202502639 of 17 February 2025;
• Applicants: the two founders of HARVEST, a Ukrainian brand of backpacks, bags and clothing based in Rivne since 2015;
• Specification: Nice classes 9, 18 and 25, 330 items: cases and bags for devices, backpacks, bags, leather goods, clothing;
• Outcome: decision to register of 14 September 2026 for all goods applied for.

Two signs filed on the same day

On the same day, 17 February 2025, the applicants also filed the word sign HRV for the same classes 9, 18 and 25. That application went through examination without objection: the decision to register was taken on 9 June 2026, and certificate No. 389313 has been in force since 8 July 2026.

On 12 June 2026, three days after that decision, the logo application received a preliminary conclusion of possible refusal.

The objection: «RV», twice

The examiner found that «the applied-for word sign is so similar that it may be confused, in particular associated» with two signs:

• the mark «RV» of the Italian company Roger Vivier S.p.A., international registration No. 854491 of 27 January 2005, for the same and related goods in classes 9, 18 and 25;
• the sign «RV» under application No. m202422626 of 10 December 2024 filed by RIN-SPETSODIAH LLC, for goods in classes 18 and 25.

The ground was article 6(3) of the Law of Ukraine on Protection of Rights to Marks for Goods and Services (the Law): a sign cannot be registered if it is identical or confusingly similar to a mark earlier registered or applied for in Ukraine in the name of another person for the same or related goods and services.

Two details stand out. The examiner called the logo a «word sign». And the register lists the word element of this application as «rv». It looks as though only two letters were seen in the monogram: the H is fused with the R and is easy to miss at first glance.

Our response

The applicants had two months from receipt of the preliminary conclusion to respond. The response was filed on 17 August 2026 with 18 annexes and rested on three arguments.

First: HRV is already registered for the same goods. The office itself had assessed the word sign HRV of the same applicants and registered it for classes 9, 18 and 25. Refusing a logo consisting of the same three letters, differing only in its graphic execution, would be inconsistent.

Second: this is HRV, not RV. The logo has three letters, and the H comes first and is an integral part of the composition. It is pronounced «aitch-ar-vee», not «ar-vee»: different length, rhythm and structure. Against the RIN-SPETSODIAH monogram there is also a graphic difference: two letters, R and V, set in a frame on a green background, as opposed to three letters merged into one black composition. The Rules on drafting and filing trademark applications and on their examination (approved by Order of the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine No. 19889 of 6 August 2024; the Rules), in point 15 of chapter 2 of section II, require an assessment of whether the sign is associated with the earlier mark as a whole, not a search for individual shared letters.

Third: HRV is short for HARVEST. The applicants own the word marks HARVEST under Ukrainian certificates No. 235668 (2017) and No. 262597 (2019), the composite mark HARVEST under certificate No. 359957 (2025), and the word mark HRV. The brand has operated since 2015; at the time of the response it had more than 180,000 Instagram followers and stores in Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Ivano-Frankivsk and Rivne, and had been covered by Vogue Ukraine, ICTV, Tyzhden and The Village. By then the applicants had been using the HRV logo for more than two years on a line of leather goods. For a buyer, HRV points to HARVEST and to no one else.

We also set out the context: in open sources we found no offers of goods under the cited RV signs on the Ukrainian market, and the owners of those signs had made no claims against the applicants. This is not a ground for registration in itself, but it shows that the signs coexist peacefully.

Outcome

• on 14 September 2026 the office concluded that the sign meets the conditions for protection for all goods applied for;
• the specification was not narrowed: all 11 items in class 9, 118 in class 18 and 201 in class 25 remained;
• this includes the goods for which the Roger Vivier mark had been cited.

Four weeks passed between the response and the decision. The conclusion does not say which arguments persuaded the examiner; it only records that the sign meets the conditions for protection.

Our view: why it worked

The decision gives no direct answer, so what follows is our assessment.

In our view the weightiest point was that the word HRV already had a certificate. It is hard to accept at the same time that «HRV» for the same goods is not confused with «RV» and to refuse a logo made of the same letters. Second came the graphics themselves: once it is shown that the monogram contains three letters rather than two, the comparison with «R. V.» loses its footing. Third was the context of a known brand, which explains where the acronym comes from.

Compare the ARTCOLOR case: there the signs sounded the same, and the matter turned on the services being unrelated. Here the goods are identical, so the difference between the signs themselves was decisive.

Practical points

File the word version together with the logo. Here it passed without objection and became the main argument for the logo. A word mark also protects the name regardless of the design. Word, composite or figurative: what to file in Ukraine.

Check how a stranger reads the monogram. The examiner sees the sign for the first time and reads whatever stands out. If some letters are easy to miss, clear the name under every possible reading. Free Ukrainian trademark search.

A family of marks works in your favour. The registered HARVEST and HRV marks showed that the new logo continues the applicants' own brand rather than imitating someone else's.

A famous foreign acronym is not the end of the road. Even where a global brand's mark is cited for the same goods, the overall impression of the signs decides. Responding to a provisional refusal in Ukraine.

Questions and answers

If your client faces a refusal in Ukraine

We prepare responses to preliminary conclusions and Madrid provisional refusals, including objections based on similarity to well-known foreign marks, review specifications before filing, and run clearance searches against the Ukrainian register. More on how we work with IP firms.

See also: Free Ukrainian trademark search · NAUMCHUK: a surname objection overcome