Weapon of Choice: Protection of Names under Civil Law Before German courts, the best weapon against bothersome domain name registrations is not trademark law, but civil law. Sec. 12 of the German Civil Code (BGB) states quite broadly that the bearer of a name can keep others from using that name if such use compromised…
The Higher District Court of Düsseldorf had to decide whether the parallel importer of medical devices also had to provide the trademark owner at its request with a specimen of the re-labelled product. In its detailed decision of 12 April 2016 on case I-20 U 48/15 the court held that medical devices were rather more…
There is no official fee for requesting expedited proceedings. A request must be filed at the same time as filing the notice of appeal together with its statement of grounds or, for respondents, when filing their observations in reply. The request must be submitted in writing, as part of a separate document with detailed reasoning…
A decision from the Intellectual Property and Enterprise Court (“IPEC”) in Skyscape Cloud Services Limited v Sky PLC & ors [2016] EWHC 1340 (IPEC) has confirmed the continued dominance by Sky against entities incorporating their core mark, ‘SKY’. The case provides useful guidance on drafting declarations of non-infringement and has some interesting discussion on defining…
A store in Ljubljana (Slovenia) was selling genuine Levi’s® trademarked goods intended only for the US market. The store was buying the goods online in the USA by providing payment details of the owner’s American home address (he is a US citizen residing in SLO) and by having goods delivered to an address in the…
In a trademark infringement action brought by manufacturers and sellers of “SunEarth”-branded solar thermal collectors and related components against a China-based manufacturer of photovoltaic cells for large-scale utility companies, Sun Earth Solar Power Co., Ltd., and its U.S. affiliate, NBSolar USA, Inc. (collectively, “SESP”), a federal district court did not abuse its discretion by granting…
Comic Enterprises Ltd v Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation [2016] EWCA Civ 455 On 25 May 2016, the Court of Appeal held that the series mark provision in the UK Trade Mark Act is compatible with EU law. In March the decision in the trade mark conflict between Comic Enterprises and Twentieth Century Fox was…
The General Court decided on 14 April 2016 (T-20/15) that the “PICCOLO” trademark of a German producer of sparkling wines had not been used in a right-preserving way. Just as in my last contribution, it is again a producer of beverages who is at the center of a trademark dispute. The German producer of…
As a follow up to the previous blog by Gorrissen Federspiel “Denmark: Trademark rights established through use” published 13 April 2016 we will now discuss for how long use of such a mark can be discontinued without the holder losing his right. From the 1958 report it is apparent that the trademark right established through…
The life of a trademark practitioner has three seasons – pre-INTA, INTA, and post-INTA. Similarly to Christmas, every year it appears that the pre-INTA season starts sooner and INTA arrives more quickly (even though this year it was later than in recent years!). The week of the INTA Annual Meeting itself, while incredibly busy, is…
