Case law

  After some 10 years, the Lambretta saga has finally come to an end, but it might not really matter that much… anymore. LAMBRETTA is a famous vintage brand for scooters, which has been acquired by…

World of Warcraft (WoW) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. World of Warcraft takes place within the fantasy Warcraft world of…

In the latest judgement of the General Court (hereafter GC) on Geographical Indications (hereafter GIs or GI) T 510/15 TOSCORO (versus the GI TOSCANO) the mark applied for was declared partially…

The federal district court in San Diego did not err in ruling on summary judgment that Seal Shield LLC failed to establish that its predecessor had used the mark LIFE PROOF in commerce in connection…

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…

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…

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 …

The UK Court of Appeal’s (Criminal Division) (CoA) judgment in R v C & Ors [2016] EWCA Crim 1617 provides a positive result for brand owners tackling the thorny issue of grey goods.  Here, the CoA…

 And the winner is… the Oscar. It is hard not to connect the word ‘Oscar’ to the statuette awarded every year in Los Angeles for the best movies, directors, actors and producers. At the same time,…