The EU General Court recently considered a claim by US-based Giovanni Cosmetics, Inc that its “GIOVANNI” CTM should prevent the registration of “GIOVANNI GALLI” for the same goods by Vasconcelos & Goncalves SA of Spain. Varuni Paranavitane reports.
EU Ministers have published the final compromise text of the amended Trade Marks Directive. With formal adoption expected in early 2016 what are the key changes European brand owners can expect by the likely 2019 transposition deadline? Abby Minns reports
The Court of Appeal has recently considered cases involving major brands Asos and Scrabble pitted Assos and Scramble respectively. Did one letter make that much difference? Varuni Paranavitane reports.
Here Global BV, navigation, mapping and location technology specialists, used their registration of HERE for advertising services to oppose registration by Here’s Great Ltd of “Heres Great.com” for eatery recommendations. Varuni Paranavitane reports the outcome.
One of the numerous new gTLDs recently approved by ICANN has been “.sucks” With its registry due to open before 2016, the clock is already ticking, with 1 June 2015 seeing the close of the sunrise period.Vicki Hawkins reports.
Since 1972 Revolvo Ltd had sold “Revolvo” bearings components. In 2010 its group applied to register REVOLVO as a UK trade mark. Volvo opposed based on their VOLVO registrations. Varuni Paranavitane reports.
Supreme Petfoods sued Henry Bell for trade mark infringement over its use of the mark “Supreme” for petfood. Supreme’s registration was valid and the marks were identical; surely this must have been an infringement? Apparently not: Rob Guthrie reports
No agreement was ever signed by Deepend, creator of the well-known “dude with a halo” brand, giving its client Fresh Trading the copyright. This led to Fresh losing its trade mark registration. But Fresh fought back and Abby Minns reports the result.
In sponsored search results, CTN Solutions and uk-phone.com both promoted their “Easyjet Customer Services” helplines but had no connection with the airline. Both included disclaimers. Did they work? Ben Dunham reports on the ASA’s decision.
US corporation Blackrock, Inc applied to register two phrases as Community Trade Marks. But were they just banal expressions that were “devoid of distinctive character” and hence not registrable? Ben Goodger reports the EU General Court judgment.
New regulations have come into force which liberalise the rules governing what companies and LLPs can call themselves and the trading disclosures they have to make Tom Harvey and Nick Thody report.
