In a recent case, the German Federal Patent Court had to deal with an interesting phenomenon among word marks called "disemvoweling", a wordplay whereby the vowels of a word or text are removed (…
Last year, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) took a decision clarifying the effects of the “Praktiker” decision on trademarks registered for “retail services” without further specifications in…
On 18 May 2021, the Polish Supreme Court issued a much awaited ruling to resolve doubts concerning the national limitation period of non-pecuniary claims in trademark matters. The resolution was…
The assessment of likelihood of confusion among descriptive marks often causes puzzling decisions, especially when the analysis focuses on whether consumers understand the descriptive character of…
Summary
Tefal applied to register “a plain red dot affixed centrally to the bottom of a cooking receptacle (such as a pan, saucepan)” (below). The goods covered were “frying pans, saucepans,…
The German Federal Court of Justice (“BGH”) held in its decision “Papierspender” (“Paper Dispenser”) that a Community design was not automatically caught by the functionality provision of the…
Any entity operating a fantasy sports platform would wish to display names of players and teams, for ease of identification and to make the platform as realistic as possible. Player or team…
We are happy to announce the new International Law Talk Podcast episode on Bad Faith in European Trademark Law. For this episode I had the honor of speaking with the leading expert in the field:…
A party that appeals a Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) decision to the Federal Circuit does not waive the right to challenge a subsequent TTAB decision in district court.
A North Carolina…
We all felt that after the Red Bull decision (Case C-124/18, see here at http://trademarkblog.kluweriplaw.com/2019/08/13/no-monopoly-on-blue-and-silver-for-red-bull/), pure colour combination marks…
