French-based champagne house Champagne Louis Roederer as recently succeeded in a dispute with the Russian Federal state-owned enterprise Soyuzplodoimport, a vodka manufacturer, concerning its well-known CRISTAL trade mark. According to information supplied to Class 46 by law firm Hogan & Hartson, which represented the French company,

"Cristal Louis Roederer Champagne originally was produced specially for Russian Emperor Alexander II in 1876. In 1949 the trade mark was internationally registered and in 1995 it obtained legal protection in Russia. However, in April this year, the Russian Сhamber for Patent Disputes terminated the legal protection of the "Cristal" trade mark in Russia. Soyuzplodoimport, being the rights-holder of the Russian trade mark "Kristal" for vodka (registered in Russia in 1973), stated that the "Cristal" and "Kristal" trade marks were confusingly similar and ordered the French company to pay royalties for the imported champagne.

On 6 July the Louis Roederer Company challenged the chamber’s decision in the Moscow Arbitration Court. At the opening sitting, Rospatent (the Russian Agency for Patents and Trade Marks) acknowledged that the French company was in the right and that the decision of the chamber was erroneous. ... Soyuzplodoimport had missed the period for challenging the trade mark registration, which is five years from the date of publication of the information on the grant of legal protection to the Cristal trade mark. The court affirmed the legal protection of the Cristal trade mark and reversed the decision of the Russian Сhamber for Patent Disputes. Cristal Champagne can now freely continue to be imported into Russia".

The decision of the Moscow Arbitration Court was delivered on 26 October 2009.

“The idea is to sell USB drives using this brand. We saw that it was not already allocated to someone else. It was not registered.”

The Pirate Bay’s owner's, who sold the domain name for a reported $8 million, are reported as having told TorrentFreak that they would challenge this registration.

Source: "Swedish Retailer Pirates the Pirate Bay Logo" in Wired, with thanks to Jean-François Vanden Eynde (eBrand Services FBS S.A. - EuroDNS) for supplying the link.

On - my birthday - October 22, 2009 the Belgian Supreme Court ('Hof van Cassatie van België') decided an interesting case between the Benelux Organisation for Intellectual Property (BOIP) and Janssen Pharmaceutica with regard to the registration in the Benelux of 'Summer Skin' as a trade mark for goods in class 3 and 5 (RoC cosmetics). BOIP had refused to register the trade mark, probably because it was deemed to be descriptive for (features of) the goods, but the Brussels' Court of Appeal  apparently came to another conclusion. The Court of Appeal found that 'Summer Skin' was not descriptive and distinctive. According to the Court of Appeal the word combination 'Summer Skin' is a sign which results from the use of the goods for which it is used. It took into consideration for example that in the perception of the target public in the Benelux 'summer skin' has no crude commercial tenor, but instead reflects fantasy and even to a certain extent appeals to an atmospere of euphoria. Thus - concluded the Court of Appeal - 'Summer Skin' - considered in its entirity - is to a certain extent unmistakably recognizable for the goods for which the sign is registered as a trade mark. Although the Court of Appeal took into account too that the sign is to a certain extent descriptive  - also in the Benelux although the sign consists of a combination of English words - the Court of Appeal did not consider that to be decisive:  it ruled that the two words are joined in a connection that considered in its entirity can not be reduced to their sole combination. Besides that the Court of Appeal considered that it had been established that the combination of the two words as such do not have a certain meaning, but refer to a result in demand after use of the goods or to pleasant circumstances. The decision of the Court of Appeal however has found no favour in the eyes of the Belgian Supreme Court. With reference to the ECJ's decisions in Koninklijke KPN Nederland (case C-363/99) and Campina Melkunie (case C-265/00) the Belgian Supreme Court establishes that according to art. 3 par. 1 under b and c of Directive 89/104/EEC and the applicable provisions of the Benelux Convention on Intellectual Property (art. 2.11.1 b and c) a trade mark that describes a feature of goods for that same reason necessarily lacks distinctiveness. Furthermore the Supreme Court finds that a registration of a name as a trade mark should be refused if it can be used as a description for (a feature of) the goods for which the trade mark is registered. That will do: de facto use as such is not needed. The Supreme Court refers to the ECJ decisions in Wrigley (C-191-01), Koninklijke KPN Nederland and Campina Melkunie. Therefore the decision of the Court of Appeal was set aside.