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CLASS 46


Now in its twelfth year, Class 46 is dedicated to European trade mark law and practice. This weblog is written by a team of enthusiasts who want to spread the word and share their thoughts with others.

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TUESDAY, 9 JUNE 2015
General Court rejects 'gel nails at home'

In Case T-140/14, the General Court dismissed the appeal against OHIM’s decision to refuse registration for ‘GEL NAILS AT HOME’ for goods in classes 3,8,11 and 21 including ‘nail cosmetics and related nail products such as nail polish, nail LED lamps, etc’.

The First Board of Appeal considered, essentially, that the word mark gel nails at home as a whole, would be immediately understood by the relevant public, which would see a description of the goods in question for use in modeling nails (gel) at home.

Contrary to the applicant’s arguments, this juxtaposition is correct English grammar, and not a lexical invention which requires no particular effort in order to understand their meaning. This is confirmed by the extracts from web pages listed in Annex B.2 to OHIM ‘s response indicating that the combination of words "gel nails at home" is common in English. Moreover, the applicant does not raise any specific argument to challenge that conclusion.

Furthermore, the applicant itself implicitly acknowledges that the word sign in question has a certain descriptive character since it stated on the one hand, the sign "is not merely descriptive of the goods [in dispute]" and, second, some of the products "have a link - even far away - with gel nails".

Thus the mark is descriptive within the meaning of Article 7, (1) c) of Regulation No 207/2009, the said products and it lacks of distinctiveness within the meaning of Article 7, (1) b) of CTMR.

Posted by: Laetitia Lagarde @ 04.41
Tags: General court, absolute grounds, gel nails at home ,
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