Royal Copenhagen, the Danish porcelain company, claimed infringement by Porsgrund AS (hereafter Porsgrund) as it considered the Norwegian porcelain dinner service company’s dinner service sets called ‘MaxiStrå blå’ to constitute a violation of Royal Copenhagen’s rights to the porcelain dinner service sets called ‘Blue Fluted Mega’. Royal Copenhagen claimed infringement under the Danish Trademark Act,…
On 15 July 2016 the PI judge in the District Court in The Hague, the Netherlands, rendered a decision in a banana case between competitors Chiquita and Fyffes International about a recently introduced new brand of Chiquita. The decision confirmed that descriptive elements cannot automatically be disregarded if these elements form a conceptual whole with…
CJEU: reimbursement of legal costs in IP infringement proceedings must not be disproportionate or even insignificant On 28 July 2016, the CJEU ruled in a case concerning the reimbursement of legal costs in a patent infringement action in Belgium (United Video Properties Inc. v. Telenet NV, C‑57/15). It declared that a flat fee reimbursement system,…
UK trade mark applications encountering no conflict with a third party rarely make mainstream news. However, last month the application to register the mark “SHOULD’VE” in the name of Specsavers B.V. at the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) roused significant interest in the media, including in The Times. The fact that this made the news…
The Administrative Instruction (AI) No. 08/2016, effective as of July 4, 2016 in Kosovo, relates to the accelerated examination of trademark applications, which is available if there has been an alleged infringement of trademark rights. When requesting such examination, the applicant must indicate the trademark filing details and submit: • Copy of the trademark application…
In a trademark infringement suit between two packing companies over rights in the name “PAKSTER,” the federal district court in Waterloo, Iowa, lacked jurisdiction to cancel two federal trademark registrations fraudulently obtained by defendant PI, Inc., because its rival, East Iowa Plastics, Inc., (“EIP”) failed to established that it suffered any damages as a result…
The federal district court in Sacramento properly determined that an individual (Scott R. Smith) lacked standing to challenge two Trademark Trial and Appeal Board decisions dismissing Smith’s petitions to cancel trademark registrations owned by Entrepreneur Media, Inc. (“EMI”), the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has decided in a nonprecedential summary ruling (Smith v….
LEGO, JENSEN and UTZON have in-common that they all are trademarks and last names at the same time. A decade ago the reputed producer of construction toys for children LEGO tried to prohibit Louise Lego Andersen – painter and gallery owner – from e.g. signing her paintings as “L. Lego” (see ruling V 150/03). LEGO…
As well as bringing you a fun copyright quiz to keep you entertained over the rest of the summer, we’ve also prepared an overview of the top 3 most-read posts from each of our IP law blogs. Unsurprisingly, Brexit was the hot topic on all three blogs, but we also have a very interesting interview…
In a decision of 22 April 2016, the Spanish Supreme Court has clarified the circumstances in which the commercialization of original luxury products through Internet sale platforms outside a selective distribution system could be relied on by the trademark owner as precluding an exhaustion of the trademark rights. The plaintiffs, various companies of the L’Oréal…
