A Puerto Rican chicken company abandoned its mark because it stopped using it for five years and never could offer any evidence of an intent to resume use. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has affirmed a Puerto Rican district court’s grant of summary judgment to To-Ricos for use of the mark…
In its decision of 23 August 2024, the German Federal Patent Court ruled, inter alia, on the question whether a word mark is put into genuine use when it is used as part of a logo and displayed in a unique font (case no. 30 W (pat) 78/21). What happened? The opponent invoked, inter alia,…
In the third (and final) of our blogs reporting on the UK Court of Appeal decision in Lidl v Tesco, we examine the findings in relation to non-use revocation. At first instance, the judge found that certain trade mark registrations filed by Lidl in 1995, 2002, 2005 and 2007 for its ‘logo without text’ (the…
For some time, brand owners and practitioners in Turkey have been waiting for three things to be moved forward before TÜRKPATENT, namely (1) administrative non-use cancellation proceedings, (2) an updated 2024 PTO fee schedule and (3) a new edition of entry exam to the profession. However, TÜRKPATENT has been remarkably silent. Here is a summary…
Intellectual property law is designed to confer exclusive protections to intangible assets, to be used in compliance with honest commercial practices. In the absence of a statutory definition of what constitutes bad faith, a body of case law has been necessary to illuminate the threshold of behavioural demerit sufficient to disqualify owners from the benefits…
If a mark is revoked after never being used, may the trademark owner obtain compensation of the “damages” incurred before revocation took effect? This what the CJEU was asked to decide in case C 622/18 (“Cooper International Spirits”), decided on 26 March 2020, and while the decision might be technically correct, it does not really…
The concept of genuine use of a trademark should be the same for all sorts of products/services, but for pharmaceuticals this is not always the case. Given the particular regulatory regime which applies to pharmaceuticals, often many years pass before the marketing authorization to any given new pharmaceutical specialty is granted. During that time, do…
Combining trademarks with further elements or sub-brands is quite popular. A recent decision of the German Federal Supreme reminds once more what to watch out for if you do not want to lose your trademark rights (decision of 11 May 2017 in Case I ZB 6/16). The owner of the German word mark registration for…
‘Dormant trademarks’ are unused trademarks which remain on the register until the competent authority declares them revoked (this denomination comes from Verena von Bomhard’s article ‘Dormant Trademarks in the European Union – Swords of Damocles?’, The Trademark Reporter, Vol. 96 September-October, 2006 No. 5). Under current Hungarian rules these dormant trademarks can cause trouble if…
