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 (…
On 3. February 2017 the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection presented a draft of an act to implement Directive (EU) 2015/2436 of the European Parliament and of the Council to…
A recent decision of the Federal Patent Court in Germany (Decision of 1 March 2016 on Case 29 W (pat) 33/13) shows that the unitary character of an EU trademark (EUTM) does not necessarily mean that…
In one of its latest decisions (I ZR 50/14 of November 5, 2015 - ConText) the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice) has ruled that the forfeiture of a claim requesting injunction relief due…
On July 05, 2016, the General Court confirmed the decisions of the invalidity department and the Boards of Appeal of the EUIPO and decided that the EU word mark "NEUSCHWANSTEIN", registered by the…
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…
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…
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…
In cancellation proceedings the German Federal Patent Court denied registrability to a 3-D-mark depicting a chocolate stick for chocolate products largely based on evidence it had collected on its…
Amazon’s internal search engine has already been the subject of a decision by the High Court (England and Wales) made just over two years ago (2014, EWHC 181, ch). The claimant was the proprietor of…
