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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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Anthonia Ghalamkarizadeh
Birgit Clark
Blog Administrator
Christian Tenkhoff
Fidel Porcuna
Gino Van Roeyen
Markku Tuominen
Niamh Hall
Nikos Prentoulis
Stefan Schröter
Tomasz Rychlicki
Yvonne Onomor
WEDNESDAY, 26 NOVEMBER 2008
Wooden lexical inventions

In a recent decision, OHIM’s Board of Appeal allowed an appeal for the registration of the CTM “VAC-VAC” for among others wood preservatives, installations for use in the preservation and treatment of timber, by use of vacuum techniques, and treatment of timber and of wooden articles in Classes 2, 7 and 40. Apparently, the examiner had rejected the CTM on the grounds that VAC-VAC was a descriptive term used in connection with timber preservation and customary in the field of wood processing, invoking numerous internet citations and also the citation of a patent application in United States which made reference to the ‘vac-vac method’ in relation to timber preservation. The applicant successfully challenged the decision before the Board of Appeal, which ruled that the relevant public will not view the sign VAC-VAC as a double contraction of the word ‘vacuum’, and even less likely see it as shorthand for a timber treatment process employing vacuum technology. Instead, the double vac only conveys an unclear and ambiguous message to the targeted public about the character of the designated goods and services.

Under the decision fewer than 27,000 internet search hits are considered a low figure for a term that is alleged to have become customary (at least in the wood treatment industry). Even more interesting is the characterization of VAC-VAC as possessing a “quirky quality, which makes it look, sound and feel like a trade mark, rather than a description of the characteristic of the goods and services”. Interesting use of language, quirky being a rather playful synonym to the more robust “strikingly unconventional”. The text of the decision can be found here.

Posted by: Nikos Prentoulis @ 06.12
Tags: community trademark, customary terms, descriptiveness,
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