On 25 January 2024 the CJEU issued the long-awaited judgement in the already famous AUDI case (C-334/22). This judgment confirms the possibility of Audi trade mark infringement in terms of the legal interpretation which will be further determined by a national court. The court ruled in AUDI’s favour, stating that a car manufacturer can prohibit…

The decision in question, made by the General Court of the EU – Standard International Management LLC v EUIPO – has clarified that use of EU trade marks in advertisements and offers for sale constitute acts of use of an EU trade mark. This case revolved around an EU trade mark that Standard Hotels applied…

A judgment of the General Court demonstrates the controversial and problematic nature of retail services marks. The ALDI/ALDIANO Case The case concerns Aldi, the discount chain. An Aldi entity (in the following “Aldi”) filed an application for the declaration of invalidity against the EUTM ALDIANO, registered for “alcoholic beverages (except beers)” (class 33). Aldi relied…

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…

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…

On 1 September 2021, Sony’s ‘Vita’ trade mark lost out in genuine use revocation proceedings in the EU General Court (see case T‑561/20). The trade mark Vita had been registered by Sony for a variety of class 9 items, including “data carriers containing programs” and “audio and/or image carriers (not of paper).” Vieta Audio applied…

The CJEU quite often agrees with its General Court, so when it does not it’s always interesting to see why.  In the GC’s judgment (T-253/17, – here previously commented) the GC had considered unlikely that consumers purchase a product because it is contained in a recyclable packaging, so that the trademark Der Grüne Punkt, whose…

London’s weather was very generous to AIPPI participants this year. It was not so hard to get up early and attend the breakfast panel on Genuine Use of trademarks organized by Wolters Kluwer as part of the 2019 AIPPI World Congress in London. The panel was moderated by Eléonore Gaspar (DTMV, France). Eléonore presented the…

The Fourth Board of Appeal (BoA) of the EUIPO has once again been told off by the General Court (GC). In its decision of 6 June 2018 (case T-803/16), the GC decided that the BoA was not competent to rule upon the question of genuine use of its own motion in inter partes proceedings if…

On 19 April 2018, the CJEU handed down its judgment in the matter Peek & Cloppenburg (PUC), a referral from the German Supreme Court in a litigation between two German companies of that same name (one of which runs under the name of Peek & Cloppenburg [PuC] “North”, the other “West”) (C‑148/17). The question to…