Club owner's letter over Tulpar name meets a Delaware address

TALAS — The Talas Commercial Development Group, owner of Tulpar Talas football club, has demanded that the company behind the messaging app Tulpar stop using the name, according to letters seen by the Herald. The group says it registered the word Tulpar and a winged-horse emblem in 2012 under the Trademarks Act of 1995, and that the app trades on "the reputation of the club".

In a reply sent this month, lawyers for Tulpar Technologies said the company was registered in Delaware, had no subsidiary, bank account or employees of its own in the ISEZ, and distributed the app through foreign app stores. They said any claim "would need to be brought before a court of competent jurisdiction in the United States". The developers in Talas work under contract to the company, the letter said.

Lawyers consulted by the Herald said a judgment of the Talas District Court against a US company with no assets in Irad would be very difficult to enforce, and that the ISEZ has no agreement with the United States on the recognition of court decisions. One lawyer, who asked not to be named, said any case would also be "politically awkward for everyone".

The development group said it "reserves all its rights". Jason Ilyasov, the app's founder, said the tulpar "was flying in the epics a thousand years before anyone registered it". The app, launched in March 2019, now reports about 250,000 registered accounts.