The Higher District Court of Cologne held in preliminary injunction proceedings that use of a distinctive trademark on amazon.de for displaying other comparable products not originating from the trademark owner may be a trademark infringement (decision of 20 November 2015 on Case 6 U 40/15). The case concerned a practice of Amazon on its German…
The Swedish Court of Patent Appeals invalidated the registration of BERGLÖFSLÅDAN and BERGLÖFSLÅDAN ORIGINAL (in English the “BERGLOF BOX”) based on bad faith because of the trademark proprietor’s knowledge of the common use of these terms by other parties in Sweden. The case concerns the Swedish trademark registrations BERGLÖFSLÅDAN and BERGLÖFSLÅDAN ORIGINAL (in English the “BERGLOF…
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta affirmed a district court’s finding that Vito Antonio Laera violated a contempt order issued in a previous trademark infringement dispute with Blanco GmbH + Co. KG (Blanco GmbH + Co. KG v. Vlanco Industries, LLC, February 4, 2016, per curiam). A full summary of this case has been…
Whether use of a trade mark in just one Member State is sufficient or not to support the validity of a CTM is an issue practitioners and Courts have struggled with since the CTM system began. The issue was addressed by the CJEU in their decision in ONEL back in 2012. Yet MINT, one of the first UK IPO…
The CJEU had to decide whether “El Corte Inglés” was confusingly similar to “The English Cut”. It wasn’t – however it might just be similar enough for article 8(5) CTMR (dilution protection) to apply. In its judgment of December 10, 2015 (case C-603/14 P, “El Corte Inglés” v. “The English Cut”), the CJEU overruled the…
OHIM has released Communication 2/2016 of the President clarifying that the new fee regime will apply to all CTMs (then EUTMs) that expire on or after 23 March 2016 – even where renewal is requested before that date. All CTMs expiring before that date are subject to the current renewal fees. The new EU Trademark…
The European trademark package published in the EU Official Journal on 24 December 2015 brings numerous amendments of the EU Trademark Regulation and EU Trademark Directive. From the point of view of Czech and Slovak Industrial Property Offices, the reform package will result in a major procedural novelty consisting in the applicant’s right to require…
The General Court has upheld OHIM’s Board of Appeal in rejecting an opposition in which the shared element in the respective marks – PURE – was descriptive for the goods in question. This serves as a reminder of the difficulty of asserting rights on the basis of prominent descriptive elements within figurative or complex trade…
On 20 January 2016, the Chancery Division of the High Court issued its judgment on the latest appeal concerning Nestlé’s attempt to register the 3D shape of its four-fingered bar. Sadly for Nestlé, in a double blow, Mr Justice Arnold dismissed their appeal against an earlier decision to refuse the registration of their shape mark…
In his opinion of 17 December 2015 (Case C-163/15) concerning the trade mark ARKTIS, Advocate General Wathelet proposes that recordal of the license is not a necessary condition for the licensee to be able to bring an infringement action based on a CTM. According to Article 23(1) CTMR, the transfer, rights in rem and licenses…
