Water toys: unlike CTMs, for RCDs different colours are not relevant
A registered Community design (RCD) presented in black-and-white protects against the use of the design in any colour (see, inter alia, Case T-68/10 Sphere Time v OHIM, para 82 (General Court). The District Court in The Hague recently applied this practice in its decision of 2 September, 2015 (Wibit-Sports GmbH v Aquaparx). In this respect, design law differs from the common practice on black-and-white trade marks adopted by OHIM in 2014 (see here).
Read more: http://www.marques.org/class99/Default.asp?XID=BHA688
Golden bears: fruit gum or chocolate?
The German Federal Supreme Court (BGH) ruled on an unusual case that will be of interest to all of you with a sweet tooth: Goldbears made of fruit gum vs. golden chocolate bears.
Read more: http://www.marques.org/class46/Default.asp?XID=BHA4191
Kamstra v Jack Daniel's: two attorneys at law on the settlement rocks please
What one spots in Court does not neccesarily match with what happens between the parties and their attorneys-at-law behind the scenes. As a general rule, correspondence between the attorneys-at-law is privileged and confidential. In the Netherlands few exceptions are available. One of these exceptions is where in the correspondence between the attorneys-at-law, a binding agreement between their respective clients has been reached. Evidencing this in court is not as easy as it seems: filing the correspondence is not allowed as such and might result in a complaint at the Dutch Bar Association. The Dutch - always fond of and good in finding third ways - created a third way: a party who wishes to rely in court on correspondence between the attorneys-at-law, may seek advice of the local Dean of the Bar Association. This process can be time-consuming since the Dean might advise that certain parts of the correspondence are strictly confidential between the attorney-at-laws and other parts might be found suitable to evidence the alleged agreement.
Read more: http://www.marques.org/class46/Default.asp?XID=BHA4177
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Issue 057
With three packed days of presentations and workshops, some remarkable venues and lots of busy networking, it was a memorable 29th MARQUES Annual Conference. HouseMARQUES selects a few highlights.
Nearly 40 people attended the recent MARQUES event on protecting trade marks with arbitration and domain name UDRP in Singapore, with some coming from as far away as India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and California.
MARQUES is pleased to share with members a letter received from the WIPO team following this year’s Annual Conference.
Water toys, golden bears and Jack Daniel’s were just a few of the topics being discussed on the MARQUES blogs Class 46 and Class 99 over the past month.
OHIM is continuing to work along with IP offices across Europe to increase convergence of IP practices. The latest fruit of this labour is the most recently endorsed Common Practice document, CP3: ‘Distinctiveness – Figurative marks containing descriptive/non-distinctive words'.
In a follow up to last month’s article, Özlem Fütman of the MARQUES GI Team discusses Turkey’s GI roadmap for 2015 to 2018.
WIPO is hosting a seminar on the Hague System for the International Registration of Industrial Designs in Geneva on 19th November.