Just out today, the General Court's judgment in case T-460/07 (Nokia v OHIM, Medion) was a bit disappointing for Nokia. As the IPKat already informed us last week,Nokia sought to register "LIFE BLOG" as a CTM in classes 9, 38 and 41. 

Medion opposed mainly on the basis of an earlier German trade mark registration for "LIFE" in classes 1,7 to 11, 16, 21, 28, 37, 38, 41 and 42.Nokia failed to convince OHIM's Opposition Division, as well as the Board of Appeal, and the General Court was not too kind either. It upheld the Board of Appeal's decision and rejected Nokia's appeal. The Court held thatonsumers generally attach more importance to the beginning of words since they are more pronounced (para. 60 citing case T-325/04 "Wordlink") and made the following distinction regarding the word "blog" (paras 62 and 63)

“Applied to IT or telecommunications goods or services, ‘blog’ must be considered as having a limited distinctive character since, by reference to that area, that word is usually understood, even by the average German consumer of those goods or services, as referring to an online diary (weblog). In that category, the word ‘life’ has a greater distinctive character than the word ‘blog’. However, as regards all the other goods or services which do not imply an IT or telecommunication element, and in regard to which the word ‘blog’ has no meaning, it must be held that neither of the two elements ‘life’ or ‘blog’ emerges clearly as the element with the most distinctive character. [The juicy part comes next] However, as OHIM has rightly observed, the greater degree of inherent distinctiveness of ‘blog’ will, assuming it is established, be somewhat offset by the fact that ‘life’ is at the beginning of the sign, as the public’s attention is usually concentrated on the beginning of the sign applied for.”

Further the Court held that “according to the case-law, when a composite mark consists of one component juxtaposed to another trade mark, that latter mark, even where it is not the dominant component in the composite mark, may still have an independent distinctive role in the composite mark. In such a case, the composite mark and the other mark can be regarded as similar (Case T-212/07 Harman International Industries v OHIM – Becker (Barbara Becker) [2008] ECR II-0000, paragraph 37; see also Medion, paragraphs 30 and 37). In this case, having regard to all the above considerations, the ‘life’ element retains an independent distinctive role in the mark applied for” (para 73).

Another interesting bit revolves around the Court’s answer to Nokia’s argument of peaceful coexistence on the market of many marks incorporating the term “life” [kind of a “crowded field argument”]. The Court held that although it could not be entirely excluded that such coexistence could reduce the risk of confusion [that sounds like “don’t even think about it”], nevertheless, it should be proven before OHIM that such coexistence is based upon the absence of consumer confusion [yeap, that’s a no – but how could you ever prove that?]

Comments or thoughts anyone?

 The famous logo of a gas station chain that remained in operation between the years 1952 and 1991 has been, as the Finnish saying goes, "removed from naphthalene" and appears now as the new logo of a Helsinki-based design company.

Mars, owner of the Snickers brand, is running an advertising campaign based on the über-macho Mr. T from the A-Team TV series. The campaign is based on a tongue-in-cheek challenge to the male consumers' manhood. The international website for the campaign can be found here http://www.getsomenuts.tv/ . Whether this site is in all details identical with the Swiss site judged below is not entirely clear because the Swiss site is not accessible anymore, for reasons that will become apparent.

The Swiss self governing body of the advertising industry, the Lauterkeitskommission, has ruled in a decision published this January that the campaign violates the International Chamber of Commerce's Code on Advertising and Marketing Communication Practice (ICC Code). Art. 18 of the ICC Code reads, under the heading "social values":

Marketing communication should not suggest that possession or use of the promoted product will give a child or young person physical, psychological or social advantages over other children or young people, or that not possessing the product will have the opposite effect.

The Lauterkeitskommission held that the Snickers campaign was directed at kids and young persons - so much is pretty clear. It then held that the campaign suggested that possession of the goods - we are talking about a chocolate bar here - made the owner more manly and stronger. This was a violation of the above cited provision of the ICC Code and made the campaign unfair under the practice of the Lauterkeitskommission.

Given the very tongue-in-cheek nature of the campaign, this blogger wonders whether the campaign should not have been judged with "humour mode enabled". He also wonders whether not just about any advertising is aimed at creating the impression that one gets a physical, psychological or social advantage from possession of the goods. Isn't that at the heart of any image advertising that goes beyond merely listing the product characteristics?

The decision (in German) can be found here; caution, 22 MB PDF file.

It is always nice to see industry associations addressing counterfeiting issues. This Thursday January 21, 2010, in Thessaloniki, the Federation of Federation of Industries of Northern Greece (FING), together with the Greek Industrial Property Organization (OBI) (namely the Greek Patent Office) host an interesting (and free) seminar on how to tackle counterfeiting. According to a statement of FING’s president, Mr Nikolaos Pentzos, in the Greek daily newspaper Eleftherotypia, the rise of counterfeiting activity that is hitting customs authorities the last two years is alarming. Counterfeiting, says Mr Pentzos mainly involves pharmaceutical products, food and beverage, apparel, cigarettes, software, toys and electronic equipment.

The seminar will not be restricted to patent infringement, but will also address copyright and trade mark infringement issues.  As far as trade marks are concerned,  this Class46 member is happy to see, among the distinguished speakers of the seminar, Ms Georgopoulou, lawyer at the General Secretariat of Commerce (which includes the Greek Trade Mark Office), because IP politics  and public awareness in Greece usually stop at the word copyright.