Poland introduced specialized IP Courts on July 1, 2020, resulting in significant changes to preventive measures, including the conditions for requesting information regarding an infringement of an intellectual property right. The IP Court in Warsaw has in the meantime referred a preliminary question to the Court of Justice (CJEU), namely: does one have to demonstrate…

A permanent injunction preventing an ex-band member from touring as “The Commodores featuring Thomas McClary” extended extrajudicially to European performances. In a long-running dispute in which Commodores Entertainment Corp. (CEC) has repeatedly prevailed in its efforts to stop former Commodores member Thomas McClary from using the “Commodores” name in musical performances, the U.S. Court of…

If a mark is revoked after never being used, may the trademark owner obtain compensation of the “damages” incurred before revocation took effect? This what the CJEU was asked to decide in case C 622/18 (“Cooper International Spirits”), decided on 26 March 2020, and while the decision might be technically correct, it does not really…

On 12 June 2015, four Montevideo stores were detected selling perfumes that used trademarks and imitated the general appearance of trademarked products without authorization. The perfumes were: “HUGO BOOS, LOCASTE, SPORT HILFIGER, STORY OF FLOWER, POISON, CHANGL, ANGEL OU DEMON, J`ADOTE, J`ABEA”, and inside the stores posters advertised “COCO CHANEL PERFUMES and FLOWER KENZO”. In…

On 26 September 2018, Division II of the Federal Court of Appeals of the City of Buenos Aires issued a decision in “Re adidas AG v. Juan Carlos Chillemi SRL seeking discontinuance of use and damages” (File No. 5423/2010) confirming the decision of the trial court. adidas owns trademark registrations for the “three-stripes” design in…

World of Warcraft (WoW) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. World of Warcraft takes place within the fantasy Warcraft world of Azeroth. Alone or together with others the player has to solve quests in order to level up and have more possibilities. Since some of these quests…