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Do we make assumptions about the origin of goods on the basis of a single letter?
The Office of Harmonization for the Internal Market (OHIM) says not – an application for a community trade mark by Borco to register the Greek letter alpha – a – for wines was held to lack distinctive character, being a simple reproduction of the letter and also a mark that Greek consumers would not see as an indicator of origin.
Advocate General Bot thinks otherwise and contends the OHIM’s practice of automatically rejecting applications to register single letters as trade marks without a full assessment is wrong.
This decision follows swiftly on from recent decisions on colour marks and confirms that all marks must be examined on their capability of distinguishing their particular goods from those of others.
It is hard to see how the ECJ could fail to follow the Advocate General’s opinion. Clearly there are no short cuts to examining distinctiveness no matter how short the mark!
The UK government is considering extending this power to depart from retained EU case law to additional lower courts and tribunals, namely the Court of Appeal in England and Wales and the High Court of Justice in England and Wales and their equivalents.
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Lord Justice Arnold has applied the guidance of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to the evidence before him, in the long standing trade mark dispute between Sky and Skykick.
The Hiscox Cyber Readiness report, a review of 3300 organisations, will be a stark warning for CEO’s of SME’s in the UK and in Europe.
How secure is your fitness tracker? (Not to mention your smartwatch, sleep tracker, smart shoe insoles and wearable Bluetooth keyboard). It’s something that many of us give little thought to, but perhaps we should be more concerned.
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