MOSCOW, January 11 - RAPSI. Hearings will begin February 19 in the Moscow Commercial Court in Burger King's case against entrepreneur Alexei Makoveyev, who has been using "Burgerking" and the "Burger-King" in his domain names.

The corporation further seeks the recovery of 500,000 rubles ($16,466) from Makoveyev in compensation, the court told the Russian Legal Information Agency (RAPSI/rapsinews.com) on Friday.

The lawsuit was filed to force Makoveyev to stop using the company's name in the burgerking.su and burger-king.su domains, which the company says are confusingly similar to its own trademark.

Makoveyev is well known in Russia for his dealings in so-called "pseudo-franchises." In late 2000, his company sold franchise licenses of famous company clones, such as ZaraZara.

The names and the logos of these companies are similar to the originals.

To avoid problems with the rightful trademark owners, pseudo-franchise dealers apply to the Federal Service for Intellectual Property, Patents and Trademarks, but do not follow through with the registration procedures at the last minute.

On November 27, the court sided with the plaintiff's application to take provisional measures in the lawsuit.

Makoveyev was prohibited from assigning the rights to administer the burgerking.su and burger-king.su domains to other individuals, transferring their support to other registrars, or nullifying their registration. The court also prohibited the REG.RU domain registrar from transferring or annulling the domains.

There are 12,000 Burger King restaurants in 75 countries. The company earns an average annual profit of $1.5 billion.