The Higher District Court of Cologne held in preliminary injunction proceedings that use of a distinctive trademark on amazon.de for displaying other comparable products not originating from the trademark owner may be a trademark infringement (decision of 20 November 2015 on Case 6 U 40/15). Please see my blog post on this interesting decision on […]
The German Federal Supreme Court clarified in its decision of 21 October 2015 that a bank cannot refuse to provide information on the owner of an account used for trademark infringing activities based on the banking secrecy (Judgment in Case I ZR 51/12 – Davidoff Hot Water II). Prior to this decision, German Courts rejected […]
The General Court of the European Union (GC) affirmed in its decision of 4 June 2015 in Case T-254/13 that the Board of Appeal had lawfully exercised the discretion granted by Art. 76 (2) CTMR to take account of lately filed evidence of use, although the further documents submitted only before the Board of Appeal […]
On 2 July 2015, the District Court Düsseldorf confirmed a preliminary injunction prohibiting the further distribution of a blouse on the basis of an earlier unregistered Community Design (Case ref. no. 14c O 55/15). The applicant had distributed a summer blouse depicting abstract drawings of flamingos in Germany since 2013. In 2015, it became […]
Whether trademark protection may be obtained for a slogan, remains difficult to be predicted. In this case, the refusal of the Community trademark application for “TOUCHING HEARTS, CHANGING LIVES” was confirmed by the Fourth Board of Appeal at the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (“OHIM”). The applicant had filed the Community trademark application […]
In invalidity proceedings before OHIM the Board of Appeal overruled a decision by the Invalidity Division rejecting a request for declaration of invalidity against a Community Design registration (“CDR”) for a yoghurt container based on the colorful lid and label it contained compared with the earlier design. On 10 October 2014 the Board of Appeal […]
In its decision of 12 December 2014 on Case T-601/13, the General Court of the European Union (“GC”) confirmed the refusal of the Community trademark application for “Pioneering for You”. The applicant filed a Community trademark application for the word mark “Pioneering for You” for goods in Classes 7, 9 and 11 and services in […]
Does a CTM registered before 21 June 2012 for all class headings protect only those class headings in the literal meaning or does it protect all goods/services in the alphabetical list of this class? The General Court (GC) had to decide on 30 September 2014 in case T-51/12 on a request for revocation for the […]