On Friday the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Marker (OHIM) posted the following information on its website:

OHIM - je suis Charlie

As a general rule, OHIM's policy is not to comment on any individual cases of trade mark or design applications either before examination or at any stage of the application and registration cycle.

However, the IP issues surrounding the registration of the "Je suis Charlie" mark could be considered to be of overriding public interest.

Therefore, according to OHIM's Guidelines for Examination on Community Trade Marks (Part B, Section 4), an application which consisted of or which contained the phrase "Je suis Charlie" would probably be subject to an objection under Article 7 (1) (f) of the Community Trade Mark Regulation, due to the fact that the registration of such a trade mark could be considered "contrary to public policy or to accepted principles of morality" and also on the basis of Artice 7(1)(b) as being devoid of distinctive character.

MARQUES members and readers of this weblog are thanked for their comments on Class 46's earlier blogpost on this issue and for their contributions to the MARQUES LinkedIn Discussion Group. This blog hopes to bring news of any other statements issued by European national and regional trade mark granting authorities on the same mark.