A new academic paper argues that Amazon has upended the US trademark system with little public recognition, and that questions about trademark law in the modern age need answering.
In our latest round-up, we look at Panama Customs seizing around $83,000 worth of fake adidas and Louis Vuitton products, Elon Musk failing to dismiss X Social Media's infringement suit, and much more.
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The General Court has ruled that the shape of Coca-Cola’s ‘contour bottle without fluting’ is devoid of distinctive character and does not qualify for registration as a Community trademark. One industry expert told <i>World Trademark Review</i> that the decision highlights the particular challenges facing those seeking to protect containers and packaging as trademarks.
24 February 2016
The Supreme Court upheld a decision of the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court recognising the powers of the registrar of trademarks to cancel the registration of a trademark under Section 57(4) of the Trademarks Act 1999 <i>suo moto</i> (ie, of its own motion).
24 February 2016
The New Zealand government is reportedly “pressing ahead” with plain packaging on tobacco products. The move will see the country join Australia, France, Ireland and the United Kingdom in introducing legislation that would remove trademarks from tobacco packaging. As momentum for plain packaging continues to grow, the World Health Organisation has revealed a new plain packaging PR push to coincide with World No Tobacco Day on May 31.
23 February 2016
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Academy) has commenced legal action against a marketing company behind an unofficial Oscars gift bag that offers nominees, among other things, a vampire breast lift, a marijuana vaporiser and a sex toy. While the gift bag grabbed media headlines when first unveiled, expect the lawsuit to be the focus of similar attention.
18 February 2016
In the film industry, awards season is in full swing. While the Academy Awards will make international headlines this month for celebrating the best of the silver screen, in Germany there has been a flurry of media coverage of a rather different type of awards programme – one that hands a statuette of a black gnome with a golden nose to organisations that are allegedly exploiting the IP of other parties.
16 February 2016
The Board of Appeal has overturned an Estonian Patent Office decision finding that the mark GRILLCUBE was descriptive and lacked distinctive character. The Board of Appeal found that for a refusal, the meaning of the mark should describe some essential characteristics of the goods.
11 February 2016
A recent UDRP decision highlights that the omission of evidence will not be viewed lightly and could lead to a finding of reverse domain name hijacking, even if the respondent does not actually request this. It further demonstrates that it may also be extremely difficult to prove that a respondent was targeting a particular trademark owner when a domain name is very short.
10 February 2016
A recent General Court ruling which upheld a decision of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market’s Second Board of Appeal to refuse registration of the mark VITA+VERDE reinforces a number of existing principles in relation to the assessment of a likelihood of confusion.
08 February 2016
In a recent domain name dispute the panel found that the registrant had intentionally attempted to attract, for commercial gain, internet users to an online location by creating a likelihood of confusion with the complainant's mark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation or endorsement of the registrant's website, which was evidence of bad faith.
03 February 2016
In a recent decision the Haifa District Court dismissed a claim of design infringement absent novelty and originality of a profile design and cancelled the design.
03 February 2016
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