A Russian government authority, which was previously the owner of the rights to the trademarks of the Stolichnaya and Muscovskya Vodka brands, sought a declaration that the claimer of ownership of the trademarks in Israel does not own the marks and is prohibited from using them, relying on a judgment given in the Supreme Court of the Netherlands that determines its ownership in the signs in the Benelux countries.
The Court held that the ownership of marks cannot be determined based on the Dutch holding. There are two tracks for recognizing a foreign judgment in Israel: enforcement and recognition. A judgment that imposes a personal liability is intended for the enforcement route and then it is required to examine whether the judgment is applicable and can be implemented in the State of Israel. However, a judgment that determines status or is declarative is intended for recognition, either through a bilateral treaty between the countries that allows direct recognition, or for reasons of justice that allows incidental recognition. Here, in the absence of a bilateral treaty or reasons of justice, the only possible route to apply the Dutch judgment is the enforcement route. However, the Dutch judgment is not enforceable because it does not impose a personal obligation but is mainly declarative, granting the governmental authority proprietary rights, and is not applicable in the State of Israel as it is limited to determining the ownership of marks in the Benelux countries only. Thus, it is not possible to determine that the Russian governmental authority is the owner of the marks or to prohibit the owner of the marks in Israel from using them.