Case law, CJEU, Keyword advertising, Preliminary ruling

(SBGK Attorneys at Law and Patent Attorneys)/ /Leave a comment

The dispute started with the termination of a license contract by which Együd Garage was entitled to use Daimler AG’s trade mark “Mercedes-Benz” and to describe itself as ‘felhatalmazott Mercedes Benz szerviz’ (‘authorised Mercedes-Benz dealer’) in its own online (www.telefonkonyv.hu) advertisements ordered from the Hungarian Phonebook Company (MTT). Despite the request of Együd Garage to…

3D Trademark, Case law, Germany, Registrability, Shape marks

(SBGK Attorneys at Law and Patent Attorneys)/ /Leave a comment

The Schogetten chocolate cases from Germany and Hungary are an example of how differently courts in the member states can still interpret what is essentially the same trademark. This blog deals with the Schogetten chocolate case in Germany (Higher Regional Court Cologne, 15 August 2014 – 6 U 9/14) and Hungary (Fővárosi Törvényszék – 2015….

CJEU, Spain

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The Alicante Appellate Court has confirmed that the use of lists comparing fragrances to well-known perfume brands is illegal. Comparison lists compare smell-alike perfumes with the respective high-priced original perfume brand. These lists are distributed among retailers to inform customers of the “equivalence” between their fragrances and the well-known brand. Lately, retailers have been using…

United States

(Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory US)/ /Leave a comment

The maker of Gibson-brand guitars could not go forward with claims that media conglomerate Viacom International secondarily infringed trademarks related to Gibson’s “Flying V” design by selling a ukulele with a V-shaped body and bearing Viacom’s “SpongeBob SquarePants” and Nickelodeon trademarks, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has held (Gibson Brands, Inc. v….

Case law, Infringement action

(CMS Rui Pena & Arnaut)/ /Leave a comment

The Portuguese market has been recently overrun by new brands and stores of “low-cost” perfumes. Their business relies on the idea of selling low-cost versions of the original perfumes, identified only by the olfactory families; the business model implicitly and explicitly presupposes that such perfumes are marketed as corresponding to the bestselling perfumes, in terms…

EUIPO, General Court

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On 18 February 2016, the General Court issued its decision in the HARRY’S BAR case (T-711/13 and T-716-13), where, adopting a rather broad brush approach, it held that food and beverage products were similar – at least to a certain degree – to services of provision of food and drink in class 43. Harry’s New…

Case law, Figurative mark

(schmid-ip)/ /Leave a comment

The Austrian Supreme Court (short “the Court”) recently ruled that a provider of maintenance and repair services for cars of all brands (short “garage”), including Mazda cars, where that service provider is in no business relationship with the brand owner, may not use figurative marks to indicate its services, but only the word mark (decision…

Case law, Denmark

(Gorrissen Federspiel)/ /Leave a comment

In December 2015 the Danish Maritime and Commercial High Court granted a preliminary injunction against citations and the use of metatags in a remarkable case between Karnov (Thomson Publishing) and Schultz – two providers of online databases of Danish case law. The case is an example of how metatags used together with citations of case…