We all know that acquiescence is an absolute defense against infringement which occurs when a proprietor of an earlier mark has acquiesced, for a period of five successive years, to the use of a later registered trademark while being aware of such use. However, neither EU nor Italian (or, to our knowledge, any other national) trademark…
Proving infringement in France has become just that wee bit more perilous after the Supreme Court’s decision of 25th January 2017. Saisie-contrefaçon, pioneered in France back in 1991 is still widely used to obtain material evidence of infringement that may be located in premises that are private, such as a company’s warehouse or showroom. However,…
Nvidia Corp v Hardware Labs (GTX) [2016] EWHC 3135 Ch For manufactures of steam engines in the late 19th century, tactics of systematically threatening to sue your competitors’ customers for infringement of intellectual property rights were fair game. Nowadays, businesses in the UK have to contend with the laws on unjustified threats which prohibit such…
Apple Inc.’s International Registration No 1152788 for the mark “IPAD MINI” was provisionally refused in Switzerland in 2014. The Swiss Trademark Office (IPI) considered that the mark was descriptive of the nature of the products in Class 9 (“Handheld mobile digital electronic device comprising a tablet computer […]). It argued that it would be immediately…
Following a request for cancellation, the Federal Patent Court decided to cancel a shape mark for sweets arguing that it exclusively consisted of a shape necessary to obtain a technical result (Decision of the Federal Patent Court of 27 December 2016 on Case 25 W (pat) 59/14). The cancellation request was directed against the German…
The Spanish Supreme Court has held that there is no risk of confusion between the word trade mark “Toro” (owned by Osborne Group, S.A., the notorious beverage company) and the word trade mark “Badtoro” (owned by Jordi Nogués, S.L., and filed for goods and services in classes 25 and 35 – relating to clothing-). Firstly,…
On 3. February 2017 the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection presented a draft of an act to implement Directive (EU) 2015/2436 of the European Parliament and of the Council to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks (Gesetz zur Umsetzung der Richtlinie (EU) 2015/2436 des Europäischen Parlaments und des…
Kim, Kourtney, and Khloe Kardashian could not force the arbitration of trademark infringement claims that Kroma Makeup EU had brought against them, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta has ruled. The court found that Florida’s doctrine of equitable estoppel allowed a non-signatory to an agreement—in this case, a licensing agreement between Kroma EU and…
The GOLDEN BALLS saga continues: after losing in the last round before the Board of Appeal of the EUIPO, Golden Balls Limited has once again taken its case (or cause?) to the General Court in Luxembourg (“GC”) (pending case T‑8/17). For recollection: in 2007, two applications for registration of GOLDEN BALLS as EU trademarks were…
This morning at roughly 09:30 am the UK’s Supreme Court handed down their decision relating to whether Theresa May, the British Prime Minster, is constitutionally authorised to trigger art. 50. At roughly 09:35, a plethora of speculative dissections of the decision hit the media, to varying degrees of accuracy. As was covered in the previous…
