Apteka Pharma Accuses Structure Close to Sovetskaya Apteka of Plagiarism

"Pharmika" developed and launched the original project "First Management Franchise" in 2023, and already in 2024, company representatives suspected that the Mytishchi company "Apteka" was violating their exclusive rights. According to the franchisor who applied to arbitration, the defendant posts in the public space - on its own and specialized websites - information about the creation of a similar franchise project using a logo identical to the original. Moreover, reviews of real clients of the "Apteka" franchise were not posted on online resources, and this, in the opinion of the plaintiff, indicates that in reality such activities are not carried out by the defendant.

Farmika states that the content of the materials posted by Apteka is absolutely identical in meaning and essence of the conditions with its original project, First Management Franchise. In addition, as the plaintiff points out, Apteka LLC's messages stated that the project was launched in 2024 (a year later than Farmika's project).

Representatives of Farmika believe that the actions of Apteka may “mislead third parties”, therefore, possible negative reviews will extend to the activities of the participants of the First Management Franchise.

The plaintiff asked the court to recover from Apteka LLC compensation for the violation of exclusive rights in the amount of 1 million rubles, notarial expenses in the amount of 18 thousand rubles and payment of a state fee in the amount of 55 thousand rubles, and also to prohibit the use of the franchise designation "Apteka Pharma" ("Apteka Pharma"), the domain name and any information similar to the point of confusion with the description of the project "First Management Franchise".

Apteka LLC, according to SPARK-Interfax, was registered in 2019 in Mytishchi. The company is owned by Aurika Chechenkova. The company's revenue for 2024 was 4.1 million rubles, net profit - 908 thousand rubles. The plaintiff and market participants associate the Apteka company with the family of the founder of the Sovetskaya Apteka franchise network, Alexey Chechenkov. According to SPARK-Interfax, the owner and CEO of the management company of the Sovetskie Apteki chain is Irina Chechenkova.

Farmika LLC was registered in 2021 in Ryazan. The owner of the company is Alexander Mironov. According to the Vademecum Analytical Center, the Ryazan retailer's revenue for 2024 amounted to 1.8 billion rubles, with this indicator, Apteka Pharma took 76th place in the TOP200 pharmacy chains.