Latest blog articles

  • Recently, the General Court in the HELL coffee case has confirmed that a descriptive foreign language term (German word HELL) can be granted protection under EU trade mark law (Hell Energy v. EUIPO, T-323/20).

  • When we talk about Trade Marks Trolls we don’t mean the ugly creature that might come to your mind. Instead, we speak about practices that constitute an abuse of trade mark law. So, how to defend yourself against such behaviour?

  • Patent aggregation is one of the critical paths to raise revenue and earn a return on investment in the ICT sector. It comprises all activities whereby firms build sets of related patents, so-called patent portfolios, and subsequently use these beyond manufacturing. Different kinds of entities...

  • Constructing a functioning single market for business and trade among the Member States of the European Union (EU) has been the cornerstone of the EU project, and remains one of the strongest drivers for EU-level legislative reform. Over the years, the EU has prioritized the harmonization of...

  • The implementation of the Unitary Patent Package will represent the result of the evolution towards the unification of the European patent system.

  • Can a single colour alone be a trademark? The question is neither new nor unexplored. However, old wine in a new bottle is presented by the General Court in its decision rejecting an attempt to register a shade of colour for inhalers for asthma and related pharmaceutical preparations, reinstating...

  • In a recent judgment, the CJEU determined that the geographical indication Aceto Balsamico di Modena is only protected as a whole. This means that the non-geographical components ‘Aceto’ and ‘Balsamico’ are not protected individually.

  • Only 10 out of the 24 official EU language translations correctly transpose Article 17 of the Directive (EU) 2019/790 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market. These apparent errors mandate urgent action by the European Commission and the EU Member States.

  • Using the trade mark of someone else to describe how your own products relate to the trademark products is allowed under certain circumstances. Recently, the law changed in this respect, leaving the application of some factors uncertain.

  • The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), just like many other IP offices in the world, has recently seen an incredible spike in Covid-19 related Trade Mark applications. This blog presents EUIPO’s approach in examining trade mark filings that relate directly or indirectly to, or in...