The body of law drawn from the precedents set by earlier decisions.
Like many companies in the fashion industry, Christian Louboutin did not seek design patent protection for its shoe designs in Brazil. The red sole trademark application was filed in 2009 in Brazil, at a time when position trademarks were not regulated by the Brazilian trademark law. The regulation of the Brazilian PTO on position trademarks…
The Chinese company acted with the requisite bad faith under the ACPA when it bought and re-registered the domain name, which was identical to several registered trademarks owned by the insurance and financial services giant. A Chinese Internet company that distributes financial and economic information to Chinese consumers had the bad faith intent to profit…
District court failed to draw inferences in favor of nonmoving party in finding no likelihood of confusion. The federal district court in Miami erred in awarding summary judgment for a title insurance company regarding its use of the mark ‘FOREMOST,’ the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has held. The Eleventh Circuit found…
“To grant trade-dress protection for Pocket Plus,” the court said, “would be to hand it a monopoly over the ‘best’ portable-pouch design,” which trademark law precludes. In a trade-dress infringement suit by portable pouch maker Pocket Plus against its direct competitor Running Buddy, an Iowa district court’s grant of summary judgment to Running Buddy was…
A district court was too hasty in rejecting the safe distance rule. A federal district court in Detroit must reconsider its decision to allow the Indian maker of an off-road vehicle to release a redesigned product that ostensibly did not infringe the trade dress of the venerable Jeep brand, the U.S. Court of Appeals for…
The district court erred in considering the failure to produce evidence of actual confusion at this preliminary stage, but the error did not affect the outcome. The U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware correctly denied a preliminary injunction after it concluded that the trademark holder failed to provide evidence of irreparable harm in the absence…
In a recent decision (T-726/21), the General Court (“GC”) confirmed that Rolex SA (“Rolex”) could not prevent the Danish fashion brand “Junk de Luxe” (owned by the company PWT A/S) from registering a trademark for their logo depicting a crown. The contested sign was among others filed for goods covering clothing, footwear and headgear in…
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…
The Falsified Medicines Directive (2011/62/EU) (FMD) was introduced in 2011 with the aim of safeguarding the public against medicinal products within the EU whose identity, history or source had been falsified. The FMD requires that the packaging of these products now bears certain safety features, such as a “unique identifier” verifying their authenticity and an…
The General Court of the European Union (“GCEU”), annulling the Board of Appeal (“BOA”) decision, found that L’Oreal’s K K WATER mark is not confusingly similar to Heinze’s earlier K mark. It was not disputed that the hair treatment goods covered by L’Oreal’s K K WATER mark in Class 3 (a sub-brand of its leading house…
