The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) recently gave a ruling in Case C-205/13 Hauck v Stokke and others that went into some detail concerning the manner in which the three exclusionary indents to Article 3(1)(e) of the Trade Mark Directive must be applied when asking whether a sign consisting of the three-dimensional shape of a product is excluded from registrability or, if registered, has been invalidly registered. The three-dimensional mark in this case was the popular and commercially successful Tripp Trapp children's feeding chair, illustrated on the right.

Considerable guidance on this ruling can be found in a special report written by MARQUES member Henning Hartwig (Bardehle Pagenberg), which you can read here.