A court case pending since October 2013, on the charges against Currency One SA brought by Cinkciarz.pl ended with the decision of the District Court of Poznan, which has not yet entered into force.
The court order provides for the payment of compensation in favor of Cinkciarz.pl. Currency One announces an appeal.
The text of the court decision contains statements concerning keywords, the use of which made it possible for the appearance of advertisements for the Currency One website in the Google browser. These keywords are related to the Polish word, which is part of the name Cinkciarz.pl. It is for this reason that the trial was initiated. Cinkciarz.pl considered that Currency One uses trade names for commercial purposes.
Lawyer Przemyslaw Schmidt, the senior associate at Filipiak Babicz Legal, says that the possibility of influencing the display of advertising through the use of a single Polish word and its variations is controversial from the point of view of defining such a technique as a full-fledged tool of action. He also noted that Poland has not yet had a decision on contextual advertising in Google Ads, which would have become a clear signal about the limits of legality for all representatives of the industry. According to him, during the trial against Currency One, the question of the descriptive meaning of the word “cinkciarz” was considered accidentally.
The actions that became the subject of the lawsuit were committed in the period from 2011 to 2013, before the merger of Walutomat and InternetowyKantor.pl when they operated as independent organizations. The companies had different owners, in 2018 the owner of the firms that had previously merged under the Currency One S.A. brand changed, and he continues to remain in his post to this day.
The company emphasizes that the current management of the firm and its powers are in no way related to the decisions concerning the advertising promotion of the product, which were taken more than ten years ago when the virtual currency exchange market was at the initial stage of development.
Maciej Przygorzewski, head of operations at Currency One SA, said that given the fact that the amount of the claim is many times higher than the financial performance of two then-independent companies, there is reason to believe that the lawsuit was initiated for PR purposes.
The lawyer of Currency One SA, Bartosz Jozwiak, said that in the context of this proceeding, it should be taken into account the fact that at the time of the start of the legal dispute, the trademark Cinkciarz.pl the trademark did not enjoy authority. He also noted that the question of the legality of the use of trademark elements and the likelihood of confusion for service recipients is a subject of lively debate in many jurisdictions, and the final decisions are not unambiguous.
Currency One indicates that the case concerned typical contextual advertising, which aims solely to familiarize users with a comparable competitor’s offer. The company also notes that the advertisements did not imply any ties between the parties, but were aimed only at providing an alternative service.
Currency One collaborated with experts who were given access to the firm’s analytical systems and all the collected data, which allowed for speeding up the completion of the proceedings in the first instance. The transparency of the company also allowed experts to assess how inadequate the statements of competitors were. This was announced by Marcin Rogalski, head of the Business intelligence department.
The awarded amount of approximately 2.2 million Polish zlotych relates to a group of clients attracted between 2011 and 2013. Currency One does not agree with the oral justifications of the court decision and announces that it will appeal.
