The UK Supreme Court (the country’s highest court of appeal) has refused permission to appeal in the long-running Assos v Asos trade mark dispute.
As reported in our post on 2 April 2015 here, the Court of Appeal held that online retailer Asos did not infringe Swiss clothing company, Assos’s, Community trade mark as use of the ASOS brand was defensible under the ‘own name’ defence in Community law.
Christian Louboutin (Louboutin) has again been successful in a long running opposition proceeding filed by Roland SE (Roland) against its red sole trade mark in the European Union.
Louboutin has faced legal challenges around the world in registering and enforcing its signature red sole on its shoes. In 2010, Louboutin filed a Community Trade Mark application for the below trade mark in class 25 for “high-heeled shoes (except orthopaedic footwear)” (Louboutin Mark):
(Louboutin Mark)
Nice Class Headings
If your international brand portfolio includes Community trade marks (CTMs) which were filed prior to 22 June 2012, you should be carefully reviewing your portfolio in light of changes expected to come into force under the draft Community Trade Mark Regulation (Regulation), a revised draft of which was released last week.
International brand owners will be familiar with the classification system under the Nice Agreement concerning the International Classification of Goods and Services. The system consists of 34 classes of goods and 11 classes of services, explanatory notes and an alphabetical list of goods and services. The class headings provide a general indication of the fields to which the goods and services in each class belong.
On 8 June 2015, the Council of the European Union published the final texts of its proposal to amend the Community Trade Mark Regulation (Regulation) and Trade Mark Directive (Directive).
The revised drafts reflect the key issues which have been the subject of significant debate in the last year, including:
‘Make Every UK Ad a Responsible Ad’
On 27 May, the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) and the Committee for Advertising Practice (CAP) published their Annual Report for 2014. The Annual Report emphasises the ASA and CAP’s continuing work to implement the strategy unveiled during 2014. This strategy aims to ‘make every UK ad a responsible ad’ through the following five strands:
In a long-anticipated decision, the Court of Appeal of England and Wales (Court of Appeal) on Wednesday held, by 2-1 majority, that use of the ASOS brand by the popular online clothing retailer was defensible under the ‘own name’ defence in Community trade mark law.
The decision, which reversed the findings of the judge at first instance, will be appealed to the Supreme Court (the highest court in England and Wales) by the Claimants, who own the successful ASSOS cycling clothing business and are the proprietors of a Community trade mark for the ASSOS word mark, which has been registered since 2005.
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