The trade dress of a wedge-shaped candy, colored to resemble a slice of watermelon, was determined to be functional and not eligible for protection under federal trademark law. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld a summary judgment decision by a New Jersey district court, ruling that a candy maker could not…

The Delhi High Court recently in the case of Coty Germany GmBH v. Xeryus Retail Private Limited (CS(COMM) 1298/2018 & I.A. 8603/2023) permanently restrained two websites, namely  perfumery.co.in and unboxed.in, from selling perfume tester bottles bearing the “Calvin Klein” or “cK” trademarks and imposed INR 1,00,000 (approx. USD 1,200) to be paid to Coty Germany GmBH…

  In a decision of this year, the District Court of Hamburg confirmed that an online-magazine article about so-called perfume dupes being “smell alikes” of well-known perfumes amounted to trademark infringement (decision of 26 January in Case 327 O 130/22). The claimants were exclusive licensees of several well-known trademarks for perfume for the territory of…

“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 applied the wrong legal standard for secondary meaning by requiring evidence of specific association rather than a single, anonymous source. In a trademark case between two competing companies that sell oversize Connect 4 games, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has held that a trial is needed to decide trade…

Another high-profile Louboutin case, although this time it’s less about the protection of the red sole as such than the liability of online retail platforms. The Court of Justice (CJEU) handed down a preliminary ruling in a case involving Christian Louboutin on the one hand and Amazon on the other, one referred from Luxembourg and…

Recently we published an article regarding the decision from the Danish Maritime and Commercial Court on blocking of domain names and websites containing trademark infringing material in the matter between Skechers U.S.A., Inc. II (Skechers) and HI3G DENMARK ApS (HI3G) and others (being telecommunications and internet access providers). Read the article here. As written in…

On 2 June 2022, the Danish Maritime and Commercial High Court (the Court) issued a decision (BS 6088/2022 SHR) between Skechers U.S.A., Inc. II (Skechers) and HI3G DENMARK ApS (HI3G) and others regarding blocking of domain names. Skechers operates in the business of selling shoes and sports products and the company has registered word and…