European Trade Mark Decisions

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The March 2014 issue of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (JIPLP) carries an article by Karin Stumpf (Stumpf  Patent Attorneys, Stuttgart), "Repeated filings of a European Community trade mark".  According to the abstract:

"In order to overcome the strict use requirement for trade marks, trade mark owners whose marks become vulnerable to cancellation based on non-use upon expiration of the grace period have started to file identical applications for the same list of goods, thus obtaining another five-year period of non-use upon registration of the identical trade mark.

Repeated filing for the same trade mark has become a widely discussed issue; however, the legal ramifications at the European level remain vague.

Currently, the Community Trade Mark Directive does not cover the issue explicitly, thus putting competitors with an interest in the subject at a disadvantage.

This article discusses current case law and relevant statutes on the issue of repeated trade marks filing at the European level, and attempts to highlight shortcomings that need to be remedied in order to discuss and adjudicate this issue with more clarity".

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The March 2014 issue of the European Intellectual Property Review (EIPR) features an analytical piece by veteran Dutch trade mark expert and MARQUES member Professor Charles Gielen, "Substantial Value Rule: How it Came into Being and Why it should be Abolished". This article attacks the provisions of Article 3(1)(e) of the Trade Mark Directive that exclude certain shapes from registrability.