IKEA Extends Trademark Registration in Russia

IKEA, which announced its withdrawal from RUSSIA after the start of the special operation, has extended the registration of its trademark for one of four applications until August 2033, according to Rospatent data

The IKEA Systems BV holding company, registered in the Netherlands (which controls the intellectual property of the Swedish-based IKEA), has filed an application with Rospatent to extend the registration of its trademark until August 2033, according to data on the Russian agency’s website.

In the summer of 2023, IKEA Systems BV filed four applications with the Russian office to register the IKEA and IKEA trademarks, including two image variants. In early February, Rospatent registered the IKEA trademark for one of the applications with the expiration date of the exclusive right on August 1, 2033.

The Russian department's materials state that the mark is registered for the category "Collection of various goods, excluding their transportation, which allows buyers to view and purchase these goods through wholesale or retail stores, online catalogs, websites or TV stores" (ICGS class 511/35).

Ingka Group suspended operations of its IKEA stores in Russia in March 2022, after the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine . The company held an online sale of its goods and finally closed in Russia in August. The Mega shopping centers continued to operate, but, according to RBC sources, the group is looking for a buyer for its real estate in Russia.

Ingka is the largest owner of retail real estate in Russia; the total area of ​​the company’s shopping centers, according to INFOLine-Analytics, is 2.3 million square meters, and the rental area is 1.8 million square meters.

Ingka's real estate portfolio in Russia includes 14 Mega shopping centers (in Moscow, the Moscow region , the Leningrad region , Omsk, Ufa, Rostov, Samara, Adygea, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and Nizhny Novgorod), hypermarkets where IKEA stores operated, as well as sites where construction of new shopping centers was planned but has not yet begun. According to FORBES , the rental income of Ingka Centers in Russia in 2021 amounted to $350 million.

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The fair value of Ingka Group's real estate portfolio in Russia is at least $5 billion, Mikhail Burmistrov, CEO of INFOLine-Analytics, told RBC . But, given the discounts that will be required, the price in the event of a sale could be $2.5–3 billion, he admitted.