The crucial date 31 December 2020 has passed and we are now a month into 2021. Even though, in the last two months, the relationship between the UK and the EU had highly dramatic moments, from an IP point of view, things went smoothly and with an incredible velocity, that we would not have predicted,…
On 20 January 2021, the General Court handed down its judgment in the slogan case brought by Oatly AB against the EUIPO’s refusal to register “IT’S LIKE MILK BUT MADE FOR HUMANS” (Case T‑253/20). The General Court sided with Oatly and found that this slogan was sufficiently distinctive to be registered as an EU trademark….
NIKE no longer had a legally cognizable interest in the validity of the preliminary injunction. NIKE, Inc., was precluded from appealing a district court’s preliminary injunction issued in November 2019 barring the athletic footwear giant from using the phrase “Sport Changes Everything” in an advertising campaign, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond has ruled….
Genuine issues of material fact existed regarding whether the plaintiff’s electronic system for managing brokerage accounts contained protectable trade secrets. Trade secrets misappropriation claims brought by InteliClear, LLC, under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) and the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act (CUTSA) against ETC Global Holdings have been reinstated by the U.S. Court…
In the absence of specific EU provisions, EU national court shall apply in regard to EUTM registrations the applicable national law pursuant to art. 129 EU Reg. 2017/1001 (EUTM Regulation). However, this may lead to different national interpretations and treatment of EUTM registrations and affect the unitary character of the EU mark, and as we…
The applied-for mark NORTH 61 was properly refused because it produced a similar commercial impression to the mark 66° NORTH when both were used for apparel and retail services. The proposed mark NORTH 61 was confusingly similar to the registered mark 66° NORTH, the Federal Circuit has held, affirming a decision of the Trademark Trial…
On 12 June 2020, the new Cypriot Law on Trademarks, No 63(I) of 2020, entered into force. Despite its successive amendments, the previous law, dating from 1962, needed a radical overhaul to meet the needs of a modern market. The aim was twofold: (i) to harmonise the Cypriot legislation on trade marks with the requirements of the…
Here‘s a look-back on the year that is about to end, with a promise not to say anything about Covid, Brexit, or Trump! This is about CJEU rulings in 2020 concerning appeals filed in trade mark matters – some numbers and observations – and wishes for 2021! The total number of CJEU rulings in…
The record, however, supported that “Bayside Breeze” mark was not infringed by “Boardwalk Breeze” as a matter of law. In a trademark infringement suit between competing sellers of automotive air freshener products, a federal district court erred in finding on summary judgment that “Little Trees” brand products with a scent called “Black Ice” was not…
The Kluwer Trademark Blog wishes all readers very Happy Holidays and of a very good new year 2021 (not only in relative terms!). Christmas is upon us – only two more days. Children are getting excited unless of course they have already received their presents, for example in the Netherlands where Sinta Claas brought them…
