Although the federal court stayed its action to allow a state court to determine the scope of certain licenses, the stay could not be reviewed on appeal because it did not effectively end the federal court litigation. A federal court’s decision to temporarily stay a trademark lawsuit in order to allow a state court to…
Substantial evidence supported the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s finding that another company, and not the trademark holder, actually used the mark in commerce. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) correctly determined that a Korean biopharmaceutical company did not use in commerce the mark for a nutritional product that purportedly improves brain performance, the…
On 5 November 2021, the Danish Maritime and Commercial High Court (the Court) issued a ruling between Kejser Sausage ApS (‘Kejser Sausage’) and Keyser KBH ApS among others (‘Keyser’). The case concerned Kejser Sausage’s gourmet hot dog stand in Copenhagen, which used the trademark ‘Kejser Sausage’. Elsewhere in Copenhagen, Keyser used the name ‘Keyser Social’…
Unregistered rights are protected by the law of passing off in the UK. In the recent decision of the IPEC in Stone v Wenman, the court reiterated and applied some key principles in the law of passing off. The Claimant in the case, a spiritual author and holistic therapist, applied for and registered the mark…
A decision of the German Federal Patent Court dated 13 September 2021 (Case 26 W (pat) 20/20) shows the sometimes thin line between likelihood of confusion and exploitation of the reputation when earlier reputed marks are involved. The mark MARBO RED was filed as German national mark in relation to liquids and flavors for electronic…
The Board provided no support for the notion that a registrant has priority as to a specific service it was second to offer just because it was first to offer a different service that is a species of a genus that covers both specific services. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s priority determination, which formed…
Previously on the Kluwer Trademark Blog We have amply reported about the Gömböc case before. If you have missed the previous episodes, you may read our post on the request for a preliminary ruling to the CJEU by the Kúria, the Supreme Court of Hungary, and our contribution about the preliminary ruling of the CJEU…
CA 8668/19 CHANEL v. SCENTWISH LTD— Supreme Court decision dated October 31, 2021 The Israeli Supreme Court has recently remanded to the District Court for further review a claim for a declaratory order filed by ScentWish Ltd. against Chanel S.A. ScentWish is an Israeli company which repacks regular sized parallel imports of well-known perfumes (including…
The Board erred by failing to consider whether the registered BROOKLYN BREW SHOP mark has acquired distinctiveness for beer-making kits. In an effort by the owners of the mark BROOKLYN BREWERY to cancel registration of the mark BROOKLYN BREW SHOP, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held that the Trademark Trial…
The German Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof) has issued a landmark decision on the relationship between national trademark law and the protection of geographical indications under EU law. The case is called “Hohenloher Landschwein / Hohenloher Weiderind”, with Hohenlohe being a region in Southern Germany, and Landschwein and Weiderind translating into country pork and grazing cattle, respectively…
