Mikhail Kalashnikov, Russian inventor of the fabled AK-47 assault rifle (AFP photo)
The Russian manufacturer of Kalashnikov assault rifles has applied to register a word trademark of the world's best-known weapon, the AK-47, including for toys, media reported today in Moscow citing court documents.
Kalashnikov Concern has filed an application "for registration of a word trademark of AK-47 including for goods of 28 class under the International Classification of Goods and Services," the documents read.
Under the classification, established by the Nice Agreement of 1957, the goods of 28 class are games and toys, gymnastic and sporting articles not included in other classes and decorations for Christmas trees, TASS news agency reported today.
The intellectual property rights court has rejected another claim of Kalashnikov Concern against M T Kalashnikov firm, owned by the relatives of late designer of Russia's famed assault rifle, on suspending the legal protection for the "image of a rifle with AK-47 marking."
The company earlier this month launched a major re-branding drive of the rifles, popular with terrorists and national armies in Asia and Africa.
The Siberian weapons maker paid more than USD 380,000 for the re-branding campaign that included a new logo "CK" written in black and red and melded into a single block. The logo stands for Kalashnikov Concern.
The Kalashnikov, or AK-47, is one of the world's most recognisable weapons.
The gun is relatively cheap as well as easy to manufacture and maintain, contributing to its popularity with terrorists and national armies in Asia and Africa.
More than 100 million Kalashnikov rifles have been believed to be sold worldwide.
Soviet Lt-Gen Mikhail Kalashnikov, the arms designer credited by the Soviet Union with creating the AK-47, the first in a series of rifles that would indelibly associate his name with modern war, dies last year aged 94.
Born in a peasant family in Kurya in the Altai region of Russia, Mikhail joined the Russian army in 1938.
He had little formal education and claimed to be a self-taught tinkerer who combined innate mechanical skills with the study of weapons to conceive of a rifle that achieved battlefield ubiquity.