In the third (and final) of our blogs reporting on the UK Court of Appeal decision in Lidl v Tesco, we examine the findings in relation to non-use revocation. At first instance, the judge found that certain trade mark registrations filed by Lidl in 1995, 2002, 2005 and 2007 for its ‘logo without text’ (the…

A few days ago, we reported that the Executive Director (ED) of the EUIPO had referred questions to the Grand Board of Appeal  (see here) . The full referral has now been published (see here) so that stakeholders can present observations to the Grand Board under Article 37(6) EUTMDR. The referral regards the decision by…

On April 2nd, the EUIPO has publicly announced the first referral by the Executive Director to the Grand Board of Appeal pursuant to Article 159(4)(l) of the EUTMR n.  2017/1001 in conjunction with Article 37(4) and (5) of EUTMDR n. 2018/625   (see at https://www.euipo.europa.eu/es/news/first-referral-of-questions-by-the-executive-director-to-the-grand-board-of-appeal ). The main issue regards the Board of Appeal (BOA) decision…

This is the first of three blog posts examining the UK Court of Appeal’s decision in the highly publicised dispute between Lidl and Tesco, concerning Tesco’s use of a blue and yellow sign (the “Tesco Sign”) for its Clubcard promotions. In a decision handed down on 19 March 2024, the Court of Appeal upheld the…

My 20-year old son Victor has started reading Homer’s Iliad. When he is done, I will suggest him the reading of the whole HALLOUMI story, which is as epic as the ancient poems. Epics are the stories on geographical indications from this part of Europe. The Greeks fought fiercely (and successfully) to consolidate a GI…

In her ‘Happy new year‘ (30 December 2022) post on this blog ‘Trademarks in Luxembourg‘ Verena von Bomhard shortly referred to the ECJ’s Classic Coach (C-112/21) decision of 2 June 2022 as relating to ‘the complex relationship between trademarks and earlier unregistered local and trade name rights‘. In the meantime, the matter returned to the…

Recent posts have examined the UK courts’ approach to IP law post-Brexit, and have examined decisions handed down shortly before the coming into force of REULA on 1 January 2024 (the UK legislation marking the end of the supremacy of EU law in the UK).  A further Court of Appeal decision from the end of…

On 13 March 2024, the General Court (3rd and 7th Chamber) issued two judgments dealing with weak marks in the sense the most trademark practitioners applaud, namely granting descriptive elements in trademarks only a minimal scope of protection. In both cases, this led to the GC confirming the decisions of the Fifth Board of Appeal…