This is the second of three blogs examining the recent UK Court of Appeal decision in Lidl v Tesco[1]. As reported in our first blog, the Court of Appeal upheld the High Court’s finding of trade mark infringement and passing off by Tesco in respect of Tesco’s use of a blue and yellow sign for its Clubcard promotions ..read more

On April 2nd, the EUIPO has publicly announced the first referral by the Executive Director to the Grand Board of Appeal pursuant to Article 159(4)(l) of the EUTMR n.  2017/1001 in conjunction with Article 37(4) and (5) of EUTMDR n. 2018/625   (see at https://www.euipo.europa.eu/es/news/first-referral-of-questions-by-the-executive-director-to-the-grand-board-of-appeal ). The main issue regards the Board of Appeal (BOA) decision in ‘NIGHTWATCH’ case (R 1241/2020-4 of 26/09/2022 – see here our previous comment). The BOA, diverging from EUIPO Guidelines, allowed the conversion of a ..read more

All trademark news that you might have missed last month in one convenient overview. Read up on the latest news reported by the Kluwer IP Reporter. Belize’s trademark data now available on TMview With effect from 26 February 2024, the Belize Intellectual Property Office (BELIPO) made its trade mark data available via TMview, an online search tool that allows users to access the databases of all participating trademark offices Read the full story here China enhances GI protection measures To strengthen the accreditation, management and protection of Geographical Indication (GI) products, the C ..read more

My 20-year old son Victor has started reading Homer’s Iliad. When he is done, I will suggest him the reading of the whole HALLOUMI story, which is as epic as the ancient poems. Epics are the stories on geographical indications from this part of Europe. The Greeks fought fiercely (and successfully) to consolidate a GI registration over the FETA cheese, and now has come the turn of Cyprus and its Halloumi cheese. The last episode of this story is the judgment delivered by the General Court on 21 February 2024 in Case T-361/21, Papouis Dairies Ltd (and others) v the European Commission. The Cour ..read more

In her ‘Happy new year‘ (30 December 2022) post on this blog ‘Trademarks in Luxembourg‘ Verena von Bomhard shortly referred to the ECJ’s Classic Coach (C-112/21) decision of 2 June 2022 as relating to ‘the complex relationship between trademarks and earlier unregistered local and trade name rights‘. In the meantime, the matter returned to the Hoge Raad (HR), the Dutch Supreme Court, for a final decision on 8 September 2023, a good reason for an update and overview of the outcome. The ECJ gave a concise overview of facts relevant to the case (see points 18-28). For the sake of brevity of this p ..read more

Recent posts have examined the UK courts’ approach to IP law post-Brexit, and have examined decisions handed down shortly before the coming into force of REULA on 1 January 2024 (the UK legislation marking the end of the supremacy of EU law in the UK).  A further Court of Appeal decision from the end of last year provides insight into the UK Court of Appeal’s views on the legal obligations and responsibilities of e-commerce platform owners, and marks a divergence from the EU’s approach. In Montres Breguet SA v Samsung Electronics, the owners of Swatch (and various other watch brand trade ..read more

The Prague High Court as an appellate court issued its judgment in the case of Chanel S.A.S. against Notino s.r.o. (3 Cmo 107/2022-384 dated 28 November 2023) after an almost six-year legal battle with the Czech based online retailer Notino, a major European player in online sales of perfumery and cosmetics. The good news for trademark owners is that the court granted the claim as to a broad interpretation of the information claim under national law implementing Article 8 of the Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights. Notino was ordered to provide information o ..read more

At the end of last year, and shortly before the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (‘REULA’) came into force in the UK on 1 January 2024 (the legislation that officially brought an end to the principle of supremacy of EU law in the UK), the UK Court of Appeal departed from CJEU case law on statutory acquiescence. Industrial Cleaning Equipment (Southampton) Ltd v Intelligent Cleaning Equipment Holdings Co Ltd & Anor was a trade mark infringement claim in which the defendant had sought to rely on the defence of statutory acquiescence.  At first instance, the High Court (IP ..read more

The Swiss Federal Supreme Court decided that the customisation of branded items on behalf of the watch-owner does not violate trademark law In its Judgement of 19 January 2024, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court followed German case law in the area of the customisation of branded products on request of the product’s owner and held that the customisation of branded products at the request of the owner does not violate the rules of the Trademark Protection Act (TmPA) or Unfair Competition Act (UCA). This decision is highly relevant, as this is the first time the Federal Supreme Court has dealt with ..read more

The start of 2024 marked a significant change in the UK legal landscape post-Brexit – the entry into force of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (‘REULA’). This is the first of two blogs looking at REULA, and at the UK Courts’ approach to EU law following the UK’s departure from the EU. What is REULA? From 1 January 2024, REULA abolished the principle of supremacy of EU law and other general principles of EU law (such as indirect effect) and revoked a limited list of EU laws. REULA also provides various statutory powers to revoke and replace ‘retained EU law’ (i.e. EU law tha ..read more