Background In 2021, Transport for London (TfL) applied to register “MIND THE GAP” as a UK trade mark. The phrase is long associated with the London Underground and is used as a warning for passengers to be cautious when boarding and alighting from the trains. The...
Background Home Box Office, Inc. (HBO), the owner of the trademark “GAME OF THRONES,” contested the registration of the mark “GAME OF DÖNER” before the Opposition Division (OD) of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), arguing that it should be...
Background VIP Products have been producing an array of parody dog toys in humorous shapes, including their Jack Daniel’s Whiskey shaped ‘Bad Spaniels’ dog toy, shown below. In 2014, Jack Daniels sent VIP Products a Cease and Desist letter against the use of...
Background In this case, the claimant started infringement proceedings against the defendants in respect of four registered UK trade marks at the UK’s Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (“IPEC”). In reaching her decision, the IPEC judge (Her Honour Judge Melissa...
Background In November 2023, a Dutch national, filed a BENELUX application for the trade mark “ART PENGUIN”, shown below, covering goods in class 2, for paints, primer coatings and pigments, and class 16, for paper, bookbinding material, artist supplies and...
Article 7 of the EU Trade Mark Regulation (EUTMR) states absolute grounds for refusal of registration of a trade mark including that a sign shall not be registered when the sign consists “exclusively of […] the shape, or another characteristic, of goods which is...
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