The body of law drawn from the precedents set by earlier decisions.
Unregistered rights are protected by the law of passing off in the UK. In the recent decision of the IPEC in Stone v Wenman, the court reiterated and applied some key principles in the law of passing off. The Claimant in the case, a spiritual author and holistic therapist, applied for and registered the mark…
A decision of the German Federal Patent Court dated 13 September 2021 (Case 26 W (pat) 20/20) shows the sometimes thin line between likelihood of confusion and exploitation of the reputation when earlier reputed marks are involved. The mark MARBO RED was filed as German national mark in relation to liquids and flavors for electronic…
The Board provided no support for the notion that a registrant has priority as to a specific service it was second to offer just because it was first to offer a different service that is a species of a genus that covers both specific services. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s priority determination, which formed…
As you may recall from our post on the ‘Sony Vita’ invalidation case, where a trade mark is registered for a product but only used for something viewed by consumers as a different product, the trade mark right for the registered product for which it is not used is lost, even if it resembles the…
Previously on the Kluwer Trademark Blog We have amply reported about the Gömböc case before. If you have missed the previous episodes, you may read our post on the request for a preliminary ruling to the CJEU by the Kúria, the Supreme Court of Hungary, and our contribution about the preliminary ruling of the CJEU…
CA 8668/19 CHANEL v. SCENTWISH LTD— Supreme Court decision dated October 31, 2021 The Israeli Supreme Court has recently remanded to the District Court for further review a claim for a declaratory order filed by ScentWish Ltd. against Chanel S.A. ScentWish is an Israeli company which repacks regular sized parallel imports of well-known perfumes (including…
The Board erred by failing to consider whether the registered BROOKLYN BREW SHOP mark has acquired distinctiveness for beer-making kits. In an effort by the owners of the mark BROOKLYN BREWERY to cancel registration of the mark BROOKLYN BREW SHOP, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held that the Trademark Trial…
The German Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof) has issued a landmark decision on the relationship between national trademark law and the protection of geographical indications under EU law. The case is called “Hohenloher Landschwein / Hohenloher Weiderind”, with Hohenlohe being a region in Southern Germany, and Landschwein and Weiderind translating into country pork and grazing cattle, respectively…
Panel confirms that the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) need not find that a German company owned a US trademark rights to pursue a cancelation action. In denying a California piano retailer’s petition for rehearing, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has expanded on the panel’s prior decision…
A party that was voluntarily dismissed from an ordinary trademark infringement case was not the “prevailing” party and was not entitled to attorney fees under the Lanham Act or Florida law. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta has affirmed a Florida district court’s decision that a defunct bus service company that had been voluntarily dismissed from…
