Two months ago I reported about the Draft of a new Trademark Act (Markenrechtsmodernisierungsgesetz) which was supposed to enter into force before the election for the next German Bundestag. Some of the relevant German associations commented in detail on the draft and proposed some well-grounded changes – i.e. the Markenverband, the GRUR, and the Bundesverband Deutscher…
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…
Following a request for cancellation, the Federal Patent Court decided to cancel a shape mark for sweets arguing that it exclusively consisted of a shape necessary to obtain a technical result (Decision of the Federal Patent Court of 27 December 2016 on Case 25 W (pat) 59/14). The cancellation request was directed against the German…
On 3. February 2017 the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection presented a draft of an act to implement Directive (EU) 2015/2436 of the European Parliament and of the Council to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks (Gesetz zur Umsetzung der Richtlinie (EU) 2015/2436 des Europäischen Parlaments und des…
A recent decision of the Federal Patent Court in Germany (Decision of 1 March 2016 on Case 29 W (pat) 33/13) shows that the unitary character of an EU trademark (EUTM) does not necessarily mean that it enjoys the same level of protection in all EU member states. In opposition proceedings in Germany, the Federal…
In one of its latest decisions (I ZR 50/14 of November 5, 2015 – ConText) the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice) has ruled that the forfeiture of a claim requesting injunction relief due to an infringement of a company name by another company name has to be determined according to the general principles of forfeiture…
On July 05, 2016, the General Court confirmed the decisions of the invalidity department and the Boards of Appeal of the EUIPO and decided that the EU word mark “NEUSCHWANSTEIN”, registered by the Free State of Bavaria for goods and services in various classes remains registered since the trademark neither consists exclusively of an indication…
Weapon of Choice: Protection of Names under Civil Law Before German courts, the best weapon against bothersome domain name registrations is not trademark law, but civil law. Sec. 12 of the German Civil Code (BGB) states quite broadly that the bearer of a name can keep others from using that name if such use compromised…
The Higher District Court of Düsseldorf had to decide whether the parallel importer of medical devices also had to provide the trademark owner at its request with a specimen of the re-labelled product. In its detailed decision of 12 April 2016 on case I-20 U 48/15 the court held that medical devices were rather more…
The General Court decided on 14 April 2016 (T-20/15) that the “PICCOLO” trademark of a German producer of sparkling wines had not been used in a right-preserving way. Just as in my last contribution, it is again a producer of beverages who is at the center of a trademark dispute. The German producer of…
