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Wheeltrim: why design law is different from trade mark law
The Court of Justice of the European Union's Order in Case C-500/14 Ford v Wheeltrims is not available in English but, with the help of Google Translate, it reads as follows:
Article 14 of Directive 98/71 ... on the legal protection of designs and Article 110 of Regulation ... 6/2002 ... on Community designs must be interpreted as meaning that they do not permit, notwithstanding the provisions of Directive 2008/95 ... to approximate the laws of Member States on trade marks and Regulation ... 207/2009 ... on the Community trade mark, a manufacturer of spare parts and accessories for motor vehicles, such as wheel covers, to affix to its products a sign identical to a registered mark, among other things for such products, by a producer of motor vehicles, without the consent of the latter on the grounds that the use would be made of that mark would be the only way to repair the vehicle in question by restoring, as a complex product, its original appearance.
In other words, while the CJEU and the German Bundesgerichtshof have established that the reproduction of a motor car trade mark on a toy car for the sake of accuracy is not a trade mark infringement, design law works differently.
Posted by: Blog Administrator @ 19.18Tags: CJEU order, design infringement, trade marks,
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