Pernambuco court withdraws Spribe’s Aviator injunction
The Pernambuco Court of Justice has revoked the preliminary injunction it previously granted Spribe OÜ over the AVIATOR trademark in Brazil. Judge Andrea Epaminondas Tenorio de Brito ruled that the factual and legal basis for the earlier order no longer holds, following a separate decision by the Federal Court in Brasília that provisionally suspended the legal effects of Spribe’s Brazilian trademark registration.
The Brasília court also ordered Spribe to stop claiming exclusivity over the AVIATOR name based on that registration until a federal invalidation proceeding is resolved. That proceeding is still open.
Why the trademark matters
Aviator is a crash-style betting game built around a rising multiplier that players cash out before it collapses. Spribe launched the format in 2019 and it has since been distributed through dozens of operators in Brazil’s regulated market, which generated roughly $7 billion in gross gaming revenue (GGR) in its first year of regulation, according to Brazil’s Secretariat of Prizes and Bets (SPA). Control over the AVIATOR name determines who can license the game and who can be forced to stop using it, which is why the trademark fight has drawn in operators such as Betnacional alongside Spribe and Aviator Studio.
Why the injunction fell
The Pernambuco court’s original order rested on the presumption that Spribe’s trademark registration with the Brazilian Property and Trademarks Office (INPI) was valid and in effect. Once the Federal Court suspended those legal effects, the court held that the underlying circumstances had changed materially, and it revoked the injunction under Article 296 of the Brazilian Code of Civil Procedure, which allows courts to lift interim relief once the conditions that justified it no longer apply.
A Georgian origin
The reversal traces back to a lawsuit filed by Aviator Studio Brasil, which argued that the Aviator brand existed and was in use years before Spribe secured its Brazilian registration. The court accepted evidence that the Aviator trademark originated in Georgia in 2016 and was formally registered there in 2018, predating Spribe’s move in Brazil. It also weighed prior Georgian court rulings that invalidated Spribe’s registration of the Aviator mark and confirmed the rights of the original owner.
Prosecutors question RTP claims
The trademark reversal lands alongside a separate regulatory problem for Spribe. In June, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Federal District and Territories opened an inquiry into alleged misleading advertising and unfair commercial practices by the developer, including a claimed discrepancy between Aviator’s advertised return to player (RTP) and its actual RTP. The Prosecutor’s Office recommended that the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets immediately suspend the technical certification of Spribe’s games and bar them from licensed operators. That recommendation has not yet been acted on by the regulator. If adopted, it would pull Aviator from every licensed operator carrying it in Brazil, independent of how the trademark case is resolved.
A dispute running on several fronts
The Aviator trademark fight in Brazil has produced conflicting outcomes for Spribe over the past few months. In April, Spribe won an injunction against Betnacional ordering the operator to stop using the Aviator name. In May, São Paulo courts rejected separate Spribe injunctions against Aviator Studio, and days later a UK court ruled in Spribe’s favor in a related copyright dispute. The Pernambuco revocation adds another reversal to a case that now spans at least three jurisdictions with no single outcome settled.
What happens next
The federal invalidation proceeding in Brasília will determine whether Spribe’s Brazilian registration stands at all, and that ruling will shape every other case tied to it, including the Betnacional injunction and the disputes still active in São Paulo. Separately, the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets has yet to say whether it will act on the Prosecutor’s Office recommendation to suspend certification of Spribe’s games. Aviator Studio Brasil’s underlying suit continues.
Source: Pernambuco Court of Justice
