Posts Tagged: "trademark litigation"

Hasbro Loses Fight Over MONOPOLY Mark in Europe

Toy maker Hasbro has been rebuked by the EU General Court, after it was found to have applied to register an EU trademark (EUTM) for MONOPOLY in bad faith. The company has owned the MONOPOLY brand since acquiring Parker Bros in 1991. It filed the EUTM application, for various goods and services in classes 9, 16, 28 and 41, in April 2010 and the mark was registered in 2011. Hasbro owned three earlier EU word marks for MONOPOLY, which were registered in 1998, 2009 and 2010 and are still live. These covered some of the same goods and services as those specified in the 2010 application. After the latest application was registered, it was attacked by a Croatian company called Kreativni Doga?aji, which argued that the application was a “repeat filing” of the earlier marks and “was aimed at circumventing the obligation to prove genuine use of those marks.”

3M Targets N95 Respirator Company’s Alleged Price-Gouging Scheme via Trademark Infringement Suit

On April 10, multinational corporation 3M filed a lawsuit alleging trademark infringement claims  against N95 respirator distributor Performance Supply, LLC, in the Southern District of New York. Central to 3M’s suit is the company’s desire to eliminate what it calls a false and deceptive price-gouging scheme being perpetrated by entities operating outside of 3M’s authorized supply chain and taking advantage of increased respirator demand caused by the COVID-19 crisis.

European Union and Russian Approaches to Registering Cannabis Trademarks

Recent case law demonstrates that judicial bodies in the European Union and Russia have taken the stance that cannabis signs and slogans are not acceptable as trademarks as they are contrary to public interest. While the EU Courts are likely to evolve more rapidly on this issue in the near future, for now the position in both the EU and Russia is clear. The interests of the business community must be protected by governments in all countries, and business initiatives should be welcomed. But when weighing the physical and mental health of society on the one hand and business interests on the other, the priority must be the former.

EU Trademark Owners Relieved by CJEU Judgment in SkyKick Case

The Court of Justice of the European Union has provided reassurance to European trademark owners in its judgment today in the SkyKick case. (Case C?371/18 Sky plc, Sky International AG, Sky UK Limited v SkyKick UK Limited, SkyKick Inc.) The case involves questions referred from the UK in a dispute over SkyKick’s alleged infringement of five of Sky’s EU and UK national trademarks. Sky is a well-known broadcaster and telecoms services provider, and SkyKick is a cloud services provider. The Court stated that “a lack of clarity and precision of the terms designating the goods or services covered by a trade mark registration cannot be considered contrary to public policy, within the meaning of those provisions” and that therefore the lack of clarity and precision in a specification is not a ground for invalidity: “a Community trade mark or a national trade mark cannot be declared wholly or partially invalid on the ground that terms used to designate the goods and services in respect of which that trade mark was registered lack clarity and precision.”

What Brand Owners and Small Businesses Can Learn from Backcountry.com’s Trademark Enforcement Campaign

U.S.-based online outdoor goods retailer, Backcountry.com, has faced a significant social media backlash over the past month, with both customers and competitors publicly reacting to its aggressive trademark enforcement campaign. It all started when news broke that the brand had taken action against a huge number of smaller companies that happened to use the term “backcountry” in their names. Public documents revealed that Backcountry.com had been attempting to cancel trademarks against businesses using the term, filing lawsuits against a multitude of smaller companies over the past two years. The impact was far ranging, with disputed trademarks, product and business names including American Backcountry, Backcountry Babes, Marquette Backcountry Skis, Backcountry Denim Co., Backcountry Nitro, Cripple Creek Backcountry and many more.