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Comment by logifail | Hacker News Reader

> Obviously they'd want to keep the trademark, otherwise they have no way to prevent those sold restaurants from "re-Arching" after the "de-Arching" :)

If a country has gone sufficiently rogue to invade a neighbour, respect for property[0][1] - and by extension trademarks - appears to matter very little, at least for now?

[0] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/16/business/russia-aircraft-... [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/61357256

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Russia is party to several international treaties that allow it to be sued outside of Russian courts if it doesn't uphold intellectual property law, and if those suits do not go Russia's way, then it is now possible that Russian assets can be seized as compensation.

Or, to oversimplify it, if Russia decides that anyone can use McDonald's trademark, then maybe Gazprom's pipelines won't be Russian anymore.

I don't think those pipelines are very useful without gas

Nor is the gas very useful without the pipelines. Mutually assured de-gasification as it were.

Putin cares too much about his internal front. He will gladly throw any foreign property owned by the Russian state under the bus if he thinks giving the Russians the foreign brands they are accustomed to can quell any disobedience or unrest. Either Russia takes the nationalistic route and converts all of its fast food joints to Uncle Vania's, or it will surely reopen its McDonalds while violating their brands. I don't really think they give a damn anyway, their business relations with the West are gone for good and they won't be mended any time soon.

Russia makes most of its money from primary sector exports (grains, oil, gas, minerals, ...), and that's basically the only thing they care about. They are building new markets in Asia for that, in countries like China that definitely don't give a damn about Burger King's IP or whatever. They know that unless Putin is deposed tomorrow and Russia demilitarises the Europeans will switch to LNG and North African natural gas anyway, they are just playing ball with what they have.

Also, those properties in the West would probably get confiscated or sequestered very soon anyway.

I think you are right. I don't see many options for Putin. Russia's relationship to Western businesses is gone for at least a decade. Putin's best option is to confiscate any Western properties and businesses that won't play ball with him. Russia has become a pariah state, so it can just keep walking down that path anyway.

You are a bit late to the party. Many Russian assets have already been seized, among them the Gazprom subsidiary in Germany.

We are in a weird spot where Russia is very much interested in economic relationships continuing more or less as is (exemplified by the conciliatory rhetoric from the Russian government, essentially they are saying "no hard feelings, return any time" to the departing companies) so will mostly respect property rights. OTOH the West sees financial and economic relationships as their main weapon in this war so most funky moves related to property rights will be initiated by the Western governments (e.g. many "sanctions" essentially are extrajudiciary property seizures).

> Many Russian assets have already been seized, among them the Gazprom subsidiary in Germany

Most Russian assets have been frozen, not seized. The German subsidiary made news for being an exception in that Germany took control of the subsidiary. But it’s still Gazprom’s property.

Are all of those mega yachts getting boarded not considered seized?

That is my understanding. The property still belongs to the owners

>> Are all of those mega yachts getting boarded not considered seized?

> That is my understanding. The property still belongs to the owners

IIRC, there are efforts being made to outright seize stuff like the yachts, sell them, and give the proceeds to Ukraine. I'm not completely up on the details, though. I think some criteria might be if the property is de-facto owned by the Russian state, or was acquired due to corrupt association with it.

What good is paper ownership if you can't actually use your property?

You get it back eventually

The problem with that is that Putin doesn't seem to care about the damage to Russias economy and hijacking the gas pipelines is likely to do just as much damage to the countries downstream. One of Gazproms local off shots managing gas reserves was recently seized in Germany, however without Gazprom delivering gas its tanks will just stay empty and they represent a not insignificant amount of our winter reserves.

Hasn't the US already been seizing stuff somewhat randomly? I don't think there is a case that Russian yachts are contributing to the war effort, but there seems to be a push on to make off with them.

The claim is the Russian rich folk commit criminal acts. The method is civil forfeiture. The outcome is nothing need be proven, the assertion is sufficient.

“We are already working with our international partners to freeze and seize properties belonging to sanctioned Russian oligarchs worldwide,” said Attorney General Garland. “We will continue to work together to take all appropriate actions against those whose criminal acts enable the Russian government to continue its unjust war against Ukraine.”

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-departments-justice-and-tr...

Reward program: https://home.treasury.gov/about/offices/terrorism-and-financ...

> Russia is party to several international treaties that allow it to be sued outside of Russian courts if it doesn't uphold intellectual property law...

> The outcome is nothing need be proven, the assertion is sufficient...

There seem to be inconsistent messages in this thread. Do we need to prove anything to take stuff off the Russians or don't we?

> There seem to be inconsistent messages in this thread. Do we need to prove anything to take stuff off the Russians or don't we?

Isn't it like it has always been in human history? You don't need to prove anything if your goal is total destruction of your enemy and everything associated with them. Just do what you think will harm them the most. Until the total destruction of one or another side. Or the whole humanity.

The only thing I don't understand here is why some people act surprised when that same enemy fight back using the same or similar means? Like seizing property and assets of companies, citizens, and administration of one state, and then complaining that intellectual property of your administration, company, or citizens might not be respected in that same country?

> some people act surprised when that same enemy fight back using the same or similar means?

Such as the headline "Russia ‘steals’ 150 planes leased from foreign owners"?[0]

[0] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/04/23/russia-steal...

> then maybe Gazprom's pipelines won't be Russian anymore.

Germany already took over control of Gazprom Germania, with tanks and pipelines within Germany. So that isn't much of a threat.

https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Fachthemen/Elektrizitaet... (PDF, German language)

Not quite. It is still the property of Gazprom, but the control is exercised by the German authorities at the moment to ensure proper operations.

Also if it weren't taken over it would be subject to sanctions as well.

That is a legal nuisance. Operational control is with the government. Profits (if there are any) won't be paid out. Thus who is listed as owner doesn't matter for any practical purposes. It however allows to give back control in case the situation is cleared. But that doesn't seem likely, thus the company will slowly be dismantled.

> Russia is party to several international treaties

Russia (or more precisely Putin) obviously gives a sh* about international treaties. The invasion in Ukraine breaches more than just one such treaty.

So why would they care about intellectual property?

That's true, but abandoning them will be a guarantee they won't be respected. At least there is some leverage and the ability to wage a lawsuit. But I agree there is little chance it will succeed.

Yeah, in the short term, any property rights of foreign organizations in russia is probably not something to rely on. On the other hand, regimes do fall and organization can survive long enough for the policy in russia to change. So it makes sense at least have a claim for trademark (because right now it is really a claim, not a property, since russia can take it away any time it wants)

Remember that the local Coca Cola branch survived in Nazi Germany during the war and even launched a new product: Fanta.

Many US companies did business with the Nazis through subsidiaries. IBM, Coca cola, Chase Manhattan bank, Ford, etc.

It's like saying a prayer when your plane is about to crash and there's nothing else you can do. Probably won't amount to much, but what's the downside?

In McD's case, there's tremendous upside. Perhaps it will be feasible for them to operate there again someday.

Didn't they already basically legalise pirating western software?

The US has preemptively invaded many countries and still very much respects trademarks.

Even the Nazis did not try to resurrect the Coca-Cola brand when it disappeared - they made their own thing and called it Fanta.

Just saying.

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