The Attorneys of EPAM have successfully defended the interests of TV-Daryal CJSC, a federal broadcaster belonging to CTC Media, the Russia's largest private media holding, in a complicated dispute with bad-faith patent holders.

The dispute in connection with claims brought by individual patent holders against TV-Daryal CJSC based on the alleged violation of the patent rights held by them. The initial amount of the damages claimed by the opponents amounted to RUB 1.5 billion.

Due to the choice of an efficient line of defence, the proceedings for recovery of compensation for violation of the patent rights have been suspended pending the defendant’s objections being considered by the Chamber for Patent Disputes. The opponents’ patent has been invalidated; therefore the court denied satisfying the patent holders’ claims. The opponents’ further attempts to rule the Chamber’s decision illegal: in early 2013, the Dorogomilovsky District Court of Moscow upheld the Chamber’s decision, and in December 2013, the Moscow City Court ruled the conclusions reached by the first-instance court as true and correct.

On behalf of EPAM the clients’ interests were represented by Head of IP Practice Pavel Sadovsky, Senior Litigation Associate Alina Kudriavtseva and Associate Alexander Podgorniy, as supervised by Partner Dmitry Stepanov.

“Due to the well-organised team work of EPAM associates, their professional actions and the detailed knowledge of substantive and procedural aspects of similar cases, we managed to obtain a fair judgment. What is important about this complicated litigation is that not only did it result in the bad-faith claimants’ complaints being fully dismissed, but their patent was cancelled, which brings hope that such situations are quite unlikely to happen in future”, Anton Bykov, the Head of Legal and Corporate at CTC Media, comments on the work done by the Firm’s associates.