A sign which is used to indicate the origin of goods and services can be said to be used in the course of trade and in many countries that use will generate unregistered rights in the sign.
Two years ago the Danish Maritime and Commercial Court (the Commercial Court) ruled in favor of the international flower distributing company Interflora in a case concerning a women’s magazines use of Interflora’s famous slogan SIG DET MED BLOMSTER (in English SAY IT WITH FLOWERS) (case no. BS9384/2017). The magazine had used the sentence in connection…
Caspian Pizza v Shah [2017] EWCA Civ 1874 When two pizza businesses (previously each party to a franchise agreement) recently went head to head over the right to use the name CASPIAN, the outcome was far from what the claimant had expected. Not only were the proceedings brought against the defendant for trade…
The German Football Association (DFB) owns the international mark “Deutscher Fussball-Bund” (with device) with basic registration in Germany (see image below), claiming protection for a wide variety of merchandise. The registration was notified to the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property in April 2014. The Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property refused to protect the…
CeramTec GmbH is the owner of the color trade mark IR 1‘109‘076 claiming protection for a shade of pink (Pantone 677, see image). At the beginning of 2012, CeramTec applied for the extension of protection to Switzerland for said trade mark in connection with goods of class 10: “femoral head spheres, acetabular cup, all the…
