Blog Archive

• Be aware of genuine use- use it or lose it!
  Posted by Jane Coyle on October 05, 2016 / Posted in Trade Marks
  One of your responsibilities as a trade mark owner is to ensure that you are using your trade mark effectively and you are not creating a monopoly over the mark which could be used by someone else.
  One of your responsibilities as a trade mark owner is to ensure that you are using your trade mark effectively and you are not creating a monopoly over the mark which could be used by someone else. If you do not use your mark properly in the classes it is registered for and the countries in which it has protection, it will be revoked and put back on the open market for another to use. If this is a key part of your brand, it could lead to the collapse of your business. Focusing mainly on EU [...]
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• EU block trade mark registration of phone ringtone
  Posted by Jane Coyle on October 05, 2016 / Posted in Trade Marks
  Even though the EU has been willing to allow the registration of ‘unconventional’ marks in the past including sounds, a recent decision has prevented protection over a very well known sound.
  Even though the EU has been willing to allow the registration of ‘unconventional’ marks in the past including sounds, a recent decision has prevented protection over a very well known sound. In 2014, a Brazilian company Globo Comunicação e Participações submitted an application to register the ringing of an alarm or a telephone as a EU trade mark for the use in smart phones. The initial application was rejected for lacking distinctive character, citing [...]
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