| |
THURSDAY, 1 JANUARY 2009
Two recent ECJ decisions
Two recent rulings from the Court of Justice of the European Community are of particular interest to trade mark owners and their advisors.
 In Case C-16/06 P Les Éditions Albert René Sàrl v Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market, Orange A/S, 18 December 2008, the court ruled that, for mobile phone services among other things, the Community trade mark MOBILIX was unlikely to be confused by consumers with the earlier mark OBELIX: in short, this was because the principle of "counteraction" meant that, since the character Obelix was so well-known, consumers would be less likely to associate him with MOBILIX.
 In Case C 276/05 The Wellcome Foundation Ltd v Paranova Pharmazeutika Handels GmbH, 22 December 2008, the court gave a decision, on a reference for a preliminary ruling from Austria, that where it is established that repackaging of the ZOVIRAX branded pharmaceutical product was necessary for further marketing in the Member State of importation, the presentation of the packaging should be assessed only against the condition that it should not be such as to be liable to damage the reputation of the original manufacturer's trade mark or the reputation of the trade mark proprietor.
More details of Case C-16/06 P can be found on the IPKat here; more details of Case C 276/05 can be found on the IPKat here.
Posted by: Jeremy Phillips @ 00.02
Tags: ECJ, |
|
0 comments: 
Subscribe in a reader