On January 12, cryptocurrency firm Tether filed applications for the registration of four trademarks in Russia. The relevant documents were published in the bulletin of the Federal Service for Intellectual Property on January 15.
The issuer of USDT is registering the following trademarks:
- Alloy by Tether (application 2024701810);
- AUSDT (2024701812);
- Tether Alloy (2024701813);
- Tether USDT (2024701814).
According to the Rospatent website, the applications are currently undergoing formal examination.
Tether has not officially commented on the situation.
ForkLog reached out to company representatives for comments, but no response was received by the time of publication.
Andrey Tugarin, founder of the legal firm GMT Legal and a patent attorney, explained to our publication that trademark registration grants the holder exclusive rights to its use in a specific jurisdiction.
“Tether will be able to prohibit the use of any similar designations in Russia: anything that is phonetically similar, graphically similar, or somehow associated with the registered trademarks. Violators will face fines of up to 5 million rubles,” he explained.
Additionally, the USDT issuer will have the right to license these trademarks to third-party companies for a fee.
According to the lawyer, globally, trademark registration in a jurisdiction occurs when the rights holder intends to actively conduct business there.
“This does not necessarily mean that Tether itself will undertake activities in Russia. It is possible that some company branches will open here and use this trademark. Thus, the rights holder has preemptively filed for registration to prevent any unscrupulous actions,” Tugarin noted.
Yulia Privalova, head of the FinTech & Crypto practice at the law firm DRC, reminded that USDT is particularly popular among Russian users due to card blockages. She also believes that trademark registration in Russia is a strategic move by Tether aimed at protecting and expanding its business.
USDT is issued on 14 blockchains and is the largest stablecoin by market capitalization — $95.1 billion, according to CoinGecko. At the end of last year, Tether issued an additional 1 billion coins on the Ethereum network as “reserves.”
Previously, the UN identified USDT as the most popular asset for money laundering. In response, Tether pointed out that the organization’s experts did not consider the company’s cooperation with authorities and law enforcement worldwide, as well as the provision of “unprecedented monitoring, surpassing traditional banking systems.”