By the end of June, the US Supreme Court will have ruled on the registrability of scandalous and immoral marks in Iancu (USPTO) v Brunetti (No. 18-302). The case raises the issue of whether, in light of free speech under the First Amendment, a ban on the trademark registration of “immoral” or “scandalous” marks should…
In a judgment of 27 February 2019, the Swedish Patent and Market Court of Appeal (PMÖD) stated that a registration of a trademark in black and white cannot in itself result in protection in relation to all colour combinations. This is a turnaround of the practice established in Sweden since the 1960’s. The PMÖD has, unlike the Patent and…
As reported earlier by this blog, there is a discussion in Germany whether an infringer who has received an injunction has to actively recall the products. And the German recall-saga continues, as the Higher Regional Court (OLG) of Düsseldorf has just recently decided in an unfair competition matter that the obligation to cease and desist…
A trademark registration of a color per se is notoriously difficult to achieve, but what about the name of a color? In two recent decisions from the Danish Board of Appeal (BOA) regarding the registration of the words MAGENTA and CREAM respectively, the question regarding the descriptiveness of color designations was the main issue. In…
Can Dinosaurs be monopolized as a trademark? The Commercial Court of Barcelona (Judgment No. 123/2019 of April 3, 2019) has held that the representation of a dinosaur on a cookie cannot be monopolized by a company and should remain in the public domain. The famous cookies company GALLETAS ARTIACH S.A.U. (“ARTIACH”) sued LA FLOR BURGALESA…
Kroma Makeup EU, LLC, a trademark licensee, lacked standing to assert trademark infringement claims against the Kardashian sisters and a U.S. beauty product seller, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta. Following a suit filed by the owner of the KROMA mark against the Kardashians and a beauty product manufacturer for infringement, Kroma…
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…
The EUTMR No. 2015/2424, as well as the Directive No. 2015/2436, have introduced various changes to EU and national trademark laws but both failed to provide transitory rules determining what is the applicable law for trademarks registered before the entry into force of the new law. In case C-21/18, Textilis Ltd and Ozgur Keskin v…
The question of how far descriptive or non-distinctive trademarks which somehow managed to be registered may be enforced is of particular relevance in jurisdictions like Germany which acknowledge their incontestability ten years after registration. The more recent approach of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) was that it accepted likelihood of confusion also in a…
With the original Brexit date now having passed (29 March 2019), it is worth reflecting on where we now find ourselves, as brand owners/IP professionals with interests in the UK and EU. The EU has granted the UK a ‘flextension’ to the Article 50 period until 31 October 2019, with the option to leave sooner…
