The EU is an economic and political association of certain European countries as a unit with internal free trade and common external tariffs.
With perhaps more of a gentle fizz than a bang, the Brexit negotiations finally got underway towards the end of last month. One might be forgiven for having missed this development, given the backdrop of a tragic fire in London and anger directed at the governmental response. Indeed, the outward glare held by many Britons…
On June 14, 2017, the Commission opened investigations against Nike, Universal Studios and Sanrio (“Hello Kitty”) for their distribution and licensing practices. The Commission suspects that the companies are containing online and cross-border sales by their dealers and licensees and thereby violate EU Competition law. These are probably the most prominent investigations into the distribution…
On 17 May 2017, the Swedish Patent and Market Court (the “PMD”) decided a case whereby it held that Nestlé’s expansion of its cat food brand “PURINA felix” into Sweden infringed the reputed Swedish foodstuff trademark FELIX, and that the fact that PURINA felix was previously used and enjoyed recognition in another EU country did not…
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…
The Spanish Supreme Court has concluded that it is not appropriate to waive the Court jurisdiction from the defendant’s domicile (in this case Italy), which had ruled against the claimant, by creating a link with another entity that it is domicile in another European country (in this case Spain), when that connection is not sufficiently…
After some 10 years, the Lambretta saga has finally come to an end, but it might not really matter that much… anymore. LAMBRETTA is a famous vintage brand for scooters, which has been acquired by Scooters India Ltd (yet another famous European vehicle brand that has landed in India). While the scooters as such have not…
In the latest judgement of the General Court (hereafter GC) on Geographical Indications (hereafter GIs or GI) T 510/15 TOSCORO (versus the GI TOSCANO) the mark applied for was declared partially invalid. In the European Union (hereafter EU) GIs for wine, spirits, agricultural products and foodstuffs are protected as sui generis intellectual property rights that…
To ensure you don’t miss out on interesting IP law developments reported on our other IP blogs, we will, on a regular basis, provide you with an overview of the top 3 most-read posts from each of our IP law blogs. Here are the top posts from January and February 2017. Top 3 Kluwer Copyright…
The Spanish Supreme Court has held that there is no risk of confusion between the word trade mark “Toro” (owned by Osborne Group, S.A., the notorious beverage company) and the word trade mark “Badtoro” (owned by Jordi Nogués, S.L., and filed for goods and services in classes 25 and 35 – relating to clothing-). Firstly,…
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…
