The body of law drawn from the precedents set by earlier decisions.
There was sufficient evidence for the jury to conclude that the manufacturer wrongfully terminated the distribution agreement. The Third Circuit affirmed a judgment for breach of contract in favor of the distributor of an implantable synthetic bone-grafting product called NanoBone. Plaintiff Artoss, Inc., sued the manufacturer, Artoss GmbH, for breach of contract after it refused…
The court also exceeded its discretion in awarding attorney fees to the plaintiff. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed part of a federal district court’s judgment in a trademark dispute between Appliance Liquidation Outlet, L.L.C. (ALO) and Axis Supply Corporation (Axis). The appellate court found that the district court erred in…
District court improperly dismissed Bacardi’s challenge to the PTO decision for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Finding no provision in the Lanham Act that expressly precludes judicial review of a trademark registration renewal decision by the USPTO Director, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia has reversed a district…
A recent decision of the Higher Regional Court Vienna (OLG Vienna), second – and often last – instance in cancellation and revocation proceedings in Austria, showcases the risks of a mismatch between trademark specifications and actual trademark use. We are all aware that EU trademark law allows for trademarks to be registered for a vast…
The jury award of $340,000 for lost profits was not excessive but the trial court gave improper jury instructions on punitive damages. Following a jury trial in Louisville, Kentucky that resulted in a mixed verdict, the federal appeals court in Cincinnati, Ohio has affirmed a jury award of $340,000 for lost profits on a trademark…
Diesel SPA (hereafter Diesel Italy) began selling jeans in Italy in 1978. The jeans were sold in Ireland from 1982 onward. In the intervening years, a company based in Monaghan also started to produce jeans under the name Diesel (hereafter referred to as Diesel Ireland). When Diesel Italy applied to register a word and a…
This is the first of three blog posts examining the UK Court of Appeal’s decision in the highly publicised dispute between Lidl and Tesco, concerning Tesco’s use of a blue and yellow sign (the “Tesco Sign”) for its Clubcard promotions. In a decision handed down on 19 March 2024, the Court of Appeal upheld the…
On 13 March 2024, the General Court (3rd and 7th Chamber) issued two judgments dealing with weak marks in the sense the most trademark practitioners applaud, namely granting descriptive elements in trademarks only a minimal scope of protection. In both cases, this led to the GC confirming the decisions of the Fifth Board of Appeal…
At the end of last year, and shortly before the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (‘REULA’) came into force in the UK on 1 January 2024 (the legislation that officially brought an end to the principle of supremacy of EU law in the UK), the UK Court of Appeal departed from CJEU…
The Swiss Federal Supreme Court decided that the customisation of branded items on behalf of the watch-owner does not violate trademark law In its Judgement of 19 January 2024, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court followed German case law in the area of the customisation of branded products on request of the product’s owner and held…
