A three-dimensional or 3D trademark registration protecting the shape or three-dimensional appearance of a mark. You identify a product or service from a particular company by their trademark. In some cases the unique shape or product package can be registered as a 3D trademark.
There are still not that many applications for the registration of these trademarks. Mainly because besides the traditional requirements for registering a trademark, there are additional requirements. The two aspects why the 3D trademark is mostly rejected are distinctiveness and technical function.
This important decision by the German Federal Supreme Court of 15 January 2017 is about how the protection against copying under unfair competition law interplays with trademark and patent law: The plaintiff manufactures and sells anchor bolts which are used to mount traffic signs: The defendant offers the following bolts: Until 2006, the plaintiff’s bolt…
3-D Mark litigation is like life itself – you never know what you’re going to get. And for that reason, it’s all the more enjoyable when a 3-D registration prevails over a knock-off. A notorious trader of perfume imitations was marketing the following perfume bottle – apparently feeling safe about the plaintiff’s product shape, registered…
Can a scooter enjoy, contemporaneously, protection as a three-dimensional trademark (hereinafter 3D mark) and under copyright law? Apparently it can, at least according to the Court of Turin, which recently said so, with its decision no. 1900/2017 dating March 17, 2017. The case was started when Piaggio, maker of the scooter Vespa, asserted rights arising…
Following a request for cancellation, the Federal Patent Court decided to cancel a shape mark for sweets arguing that it exclusively consisted of a shape necessary to obtain a technical result (Decision of the Federal Patent Court of 27 December 2016 on Case 25 W (pat) 59/14). The cancellation request was directed against the German…
Denmark: 3D-marks – so desirable and yet so hard to get Lately, there have been four interesting 3D-cases in Denmark based on absolute grounds. The first case is a decision by the Danish Board of Appal (hereafter called DBoA) which related to an application by Christian Louboutin for the following 3D mark under application number…
A recent case before the European Court of Justice has dealt with the interesting question of how Article 7(1)(e)(ii) of Regulation No 40/94 (now replaced by Regulation 207/2009), which provides that signs which consist exclusively of the shape of goods necessary to obtain a technical result shall not be registered, should be assessed. Thereby, German…
In cancellation proceedings the German Federal Patent Court denied registrability to a 3-D-mark depicting a chocolate stick for chocolate products largely based on evidence it had collected on its own motion (Decision of 22 April 2016 on Case 25 W(pat) 8/09). The International Registration (“IR”) depicted below was registered in December 2005 in Germany. In…
The Spanish Supreme Court recently had to consider the likelihood of confusion between the representation of a lila mop registered as a two-dimensional trade mark and another party’s actual product, again, a lila mop. The signs at issue were the following: Trademarks owned by the plaintiff Defendant’s use The Court rejected the…
The Schogetten chocolate cases from Germany and Hungary are an example of how differently courts in the member states can still interpret what is essentially the same trademark. This blog deals with the Schogetten chocolate case in Germany (Higher Regional Court Cologne, 15 August 2014 – 6 U 9/14) and Hungary (Fővárosi Törvényszék – 2015….
On 20 January 2016, the Chancery Division of the High Court issued its judgment on the latest appeal concerning Nestlé’s attempt to register the 3D shape of its four-fingered bar. Sadly for Nestlé, in a double blow, Mr Justice Arnold dismissed their appeal against an earlier decision to refuse the registration of their shape mark…
