“Dura lex sed lex” (it’s harsh but it’s the law) is a principle that usually does not admit exceptions. Unless of course one can make recourse to the “restitutio in integrum”, which, however, is a remedy not so easily obtainable, save perhaps around Christmas, as shown in the decision by the General Court in Forbo…
A recent decision of the CJEU in a patent-related matter questions the former common understanding in Hungary: requesting an interim injunction for trademark infringement comes with a risk. The common understanding based on Article 9(7) of the Enforcement Directive was that, if the court orders an interim injunction which is later lifted, the plaintiff shall…
Following the inspirational blogs by Agnieszka Sztoldman and Katharina Schmid’s on slogans here and here, I would like to share some fairly recent decisions from Norway. They show that there is “hope in a hanging snore” for the protection of promotional slogans in Norway. It begins with the outdoor apparel slogan NEVER STOP EXPLORING. The…
When I started writing this article, the news came out that the UK and the EU had reached an agreement on the Northern Ireland border checks, so the UK would remove controversial clauses from the Internal Market Bill that were breaching the Withdrawal Agreement with the EU. Last night, Boris Johnson met Ursula von der…
To ensure you don’t miss out on interesting IP law developments reported on our other IP blogs, we will, on a regular basis, provide you with an overview of the top 3 most-read posts from each of our IP law blogs. Here are the top posts from September, October and November. Top 3 Kluwer Copyright…
The TTAB did not abuse its discretion by canceling the registration for HOLLYWOOD BEER as a sanction for repeated and willful failure to comply with the Board’s discovery orders in a cancellation proceeding. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board did not abuse its discretion in cancelling registration for the mark HOLLYWOOD BEER on the Supplemental…
Imagine you file an application for a figurative mark, and EUIPO publishes it. But then your application is opposed by a third party. So while you’re fighting that battle, you file just the word portion of your figurative mark and get a registration. You also file, two further figurative marks containing the same word mark,…
Reason prevailed: on 5 October 2020 (T-602/19), the General Court of the European Union granted the action of Eugène Perma France against the EUIPO and held that the marks NATURALIUM and NATURANOVE could not be considered confusingly similar only because both started in “NATURA”. Surprisingly, both the Opposition Division and the Fourth Board of Appeal…
It is not common that local Indian companies sue multinationals for infringement in India – and win. However, recently, just that happened: Parle Agro Pvt. Ltd. (“Parle ”) sued multinational retail giant Walmart India Pvt. Ltd. and Ors. (“Walmart India”) at the Bombay High Court for violating its trademark/trade-dress when it launched a deceptively similar…
Inspired by my co-blogger Agnieszka Sztoldman’s August post on Teva’s headache over slogan (EU) trade marks, and the mood-lifting granting of protection to the slogan “STIMMUNG HOCH ZWEI” in Austria (see details below), this is to provide an overview on the protection of slogans and taglines in recent Austrian case law. As any other trademarks,…
