The Brexit transition period has come and gone, and we are now almost 8 months into our post-EU life. One thing we can all agree on is that the way we work and the processes we use have been hit…
As you may recall, the CJEU in cases C-449/18P and C-474/18P of 17 September 2020, (see http://trademarkblog.kluweriplaw.com/2020/09/23/lionel-messi-scores-his-surname-trade-mark-the-cjeus-own-goal…
In its TARGET VENTURES decision of 28 October 2020 (T-273/19), the General Court stated that there could be bad faith when there were objective indicia of a dishonest intention of the trademark owner…
In granting summary judgment, the district court incorrectly assumed that "actual use" of unregistered service mark requires actual sales and revenue generation.
A federal district court applied an…
In a recent case, the German Federal Patent Court had to deal with an interesting phenomenon among word marks called "disemvoweling", a wordplay whereby the vowels of a word or text are removed (…
Last year, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) took a decision clarifying the effects of the “Praktiker” decision on trademarks registered for “retail services” without further specifications in…
On 18 May 2021, the Polish Supreme Court issued a much awaited ruling to resolve doubts concerning the national limitation period of non-pecuniary claims in trademark matters. The resolution was…
The assessment of likelihood of confusion among descriptive marks often causes puzzling decisions, especially when the analysis focuses on whether consumers understand the descriptive character of…
Summary
Tefal applied to register “a plain red dot affixed centrally to the bottom of a cooking receptacle (such as a pan, saucepan)” (below). The goods covered were “frying pans, saucepans,…
The German Federal Court of Justice (“BGH”) held in its decision “Papierspender” (“Paper Dispenser”) that a Community design was not automatically caught by the functionality provision of the…
