Amid a broadening investigation of Russian contacts with his associates and his own role in trying to stop it, President Trump fired off another angry tweet this past week repeating his assertion that he has no business interests in Russia.
But while no Trump Tower graces the Moscow skyline, the Russian authorities recently made sure that another piece of valuable property — the intellectual kind — bearing the same name remained safely in Mr. Trump’s portfolio.
Last year, while hacking Democrats’ emails and working to undermine the American presidential election, the Russian government also granted extensions to six trademarks for Mr. Trump that had been set to expire. The Trump trademarks, originally obtained between 1996 and 2007 for hotels and branding deals that never materialized, each had terms that were coming to an end in 2016.
Despite their inactivity, the Trump Organization sought extensions for the trademarks from Rospatent, the Russian government agency in charge of intellectual property. In a series of approvals starting in April 2016 and ending in December, Rospatent granted new 10-year terms for the trademarks, the agency’s records show.
Four of the approvals were officially registered on Nov. 8 — Election Day in the United States.
Under normal circumstances, renewing trademarks in Russia is generally a routine matter, and there is nothing to suggest from the few public records available that Mr. Trump was shown favoritism. Still, extensions are not guaranteed and can be subject to challenge — particularly if, as in this case, the trademarks went unused for years, according to interviews with a half-dozen lawyers specializing in intellectual property law.
And there is the unprecedented variable of the applicant, Mr. Trump, an American presidential candidate, seeking approvals from a foreign power that United States intelligence agencies concluded had tried to tip the campaign in his favor. As with other federal agencies in Russia, any sensitive decisions by Rospatent — whose director was handpicked by President Vladimir V. Putin for a previous job as deputy culture minister — are presumed to align with the views of Mr. Putin.
Beyond the questions about Russian government approvals, the trademark renewals cast doubt on Mr. Trump’s oft-stated insistence that he has no business interests in Russia. Mr. Trump has made the claims in response to investigations of possible collusion between his associates and Russia during and after the election.
In January, he wrote on Twitter, “I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA — NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!” He told NBC News in May that he has “no investments in Russia, none whatsoever.” And on Thursday, he expressed frustration on Twitter over scrutiny of his “non-dealings” in Russia.
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In Russia — a “first-to-file” country, where longtime use of a name or logo cannot protect against a competitor’s swooping in and registering it first — it is not uncommon for businesses to file defensive registrations to keep others from grabbing their trademarks. But they need to put them to use, or the trademarks become open to challenges after three years of inactivity.
Mr. Trump first sought a trademark in Russia, for “Trump Tower,” in 1996 during one of his earliest explorations of a possible real estate project in Moscow. Ten years later, while working with the Bayrock Group on several hotels in the United States, he obtained four more Russian trademarks to be used in connection with hotels. Bayrock — whose top executives included Tevfik Arif, a Soviet-era commerce official originally from Kazakhstan, and Felix Sater, a Russian émigré and felon — scouted potential deals in Russia for Mr. Trump, but none panned out.
In 2007, while selling his brand of vodka in Russia and elsewhere, Mr. Trump obtained a trademark for that purpose, though the product was discontinued after several years. Finally, in 2008, Mr. Trump sought trademarks for a coat of arms and the name “Trump Home,” to be used with a long list of furniture products.
Since then, the Trump trademarks have remained on the books but not put to use. If there were no challenges to a renewal application, approval by Rospatent would normally not be a problem, said Peter Sloane, a trademark attorney with Leason Ellis in White Plains.
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Nothing to see here, folks.https://t.co/GTHVg4Sd0j
— John Schindler (@20committee) June 18, 2017
Witch hunt! Witch hunt!
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