Infringement

On 2 July 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) handed down another decision which interprets the mercurial concept of ‘trade mark use’. Case C-684/19 - mk advokaten is a…

Parties and Mark The defendant is an Amazon entity. It is responsible for Amazon’s keyword advertising on Google Ads (formerly Adwords). The plaintiff is the exclusive licensee of the trademark BOSS…

On 20 May 2020, we received another decision in the long-running dispute between Merck KGgA (“Merck Global”) and their former US subsidiary (“Merck US”).  This case dealt with the following five…

On 30 April 2020 (C-772/18), the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) addressed a contentious issue in trademark enforcement. It discussed the definition of “use in the course of trade”,…

An exclusive licensee that did not own the mark outright when the suit began lacked standing to sue for infringement. An exclusive licensee of a trademark when a trademark infringement suit began…

In the past few weeks, almost contemporaneously, two courts cases dealt with the scope of protection of the PDO “Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena” and the PGI “Aceto Balsamico di Modena”. Both…

"Reverse trademark confusion" infringement theory suffices for liability but does not support recovery of infringer’s profits. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago has affirmed a Wisconsin federal…

There was no evidence that the firm’s marks achieved secondary meaning, and the same marks were being used as trademarks as well as service marks in the advertising space. Plaintiffs and Appellants…

An efficient, reliable and cost-effective route for protecting trademarks globally through the Madrid Agreement or the Madrid Protocol will be beneficial for IP-right holders. For a period of five…