Once more the Federal German Patent Court (Bundespatentgericht) refused the registration of a word sign which was registered by OHIM apparently without any problems.

The sign in question is:

which was filed for goods in class 9 as well as various services in classes 38 and 45, all of which referring to a system for tracking people with GPS signals and providing the respective information on the internet.

The German Patent and Trademark Office stated in the first instance that the sign is composed of the letter "i", allegedly being commonly used as an abbreviation for "internet" or "information", and the English term "Nanny", which is understood and well known by German consumers in the sense of someone taking care of children ("Kindermädchen"). Thus it is obvious that the claimed goods and services are suited to provide "nanny"-services, i.e. tracking and watching of children via the internet. Therefore the sign is descriptive and lacks distinctiveness.

Although the applicant tried to argue that consumers will not necessarily understand the letter "i" as a reference to the internet, the court upheld the argumentation of the German Patent and Trademark Office and confirmed the rejection.

By the way, the corresponding trade mark with design, i.e.

was deemed to be registerable without any problems...

Case reference: Bundespatentgericht 26 W (pat) 23/10 "iNanny" of May 31, 2011. The decision can be retrieved from the court’s website by following the above link.

PS: This Class 46 member thinks that this decision is once more a good example for the fact that it may be easier to register a possibly descriptive trade mark (even an English one) with OHIM than with the German authorities...