Latest Managing Trade marks News

• Gucci bests Guess in trade mark fashion case

  Gucci America won a trade mark infringement battle with fashion company Guess on Tuesday, when a New York court awarded the company just over $4.5 million in damages

• UK appoints IP attaché to India

  Anshika Jha will be based in the British High Commission in New Delhi and work with representatives from UK Trade and Investment and the Foreign Office to help British businesses operating in India

• Managing IP’s guide to Lindt's chocolate bunny dispute

  On Thursday the Court of Justice of the EU will end a long-running battle by a Swiss chocolate maker to protect the shape of its chocolate rabbits. Its ruling should clarify how OHIM should measure a trade mark’s distinctiveness. Here’s a guide to the dispute so far

• Customs officers sanction grey market goods

  A circular from India’s Central Board of Excise and Customs has advised Customs officers that parallel imports do not violate the Trade Marks Act and that they should allow the products through

• Quiz of the week May 14-18

  How much attention have you been paying to IP developments in the past week? Test your knowledge with Managing IP’s news quiz

• Stichting BDO loses mark in row over well-known status

  An international accounting firm has lost its trade mark in the Philippines in a dispute focusing on its well-known status and prior use of the mark by a rival

• What's on this week

  Managing IP lists the IP meetings, decisions and events taking place this week

• Icann appoints independent objector to review gTLDs

  Icann has selected Alain Pellet as the independent objector for the global top level domain (gTLD) selection program

Trade mark class headings

• IP Translator: AG says OHIM is wrong on class headings

  The Advocate General at Europe’s highest court has said today that OHIM’s class-heading-covers-all approach to applications does not provide the clarity required for registering trade marks

• Why brand owners could lose rights in Europe

  IP owners with trade marks in Europe should review their portfolios before the IP Translator decision to avoid losing the scope of their rights

• IP Translator hearing: what the parties said

  Lawyers representing the UK, Denmark, Germany, Ireland and France lined up this week to tell the Court of Justice why OHIM should change its practice on class headings and how it affects trade mark owners

• Managing IP’s guide to the IP Translator case

  Officials from OHIM and national IP offices are heading to Luxembourg to urge 13 judges from Europe’s highest court to rule in their favour in a case relating to class headings. Managing IP explains the dispute

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Character merchandising

• Angry Birds tempt the Chinese with mooncakes

  As China’s year of the dragon approaches, Rovio, the Finnish company that created Angry Birds, will launch a new version of the game for its growing Chinese fanbase – part of a sophisticated licensing strategy in the country

• Hello Kitty and Disney reveal China licensing secrets

  Two of the most successful brand licensors in the world explained how they intend to grow their China businesses at a conference in Hong Kong this week

• Betty Boop infringement claims rejected

  A US appeals court has dealt a blow to character merchandising, in a copyright and trade mark dispute over the cartoon character Betty Boop

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Trade marks in India

• Indian IP office gets a new head

  The head of India’s IP Office, PH Kurian, is to step down in less than a fortnight and will be succeeded by Chaitanya Prasad

• India considers IP office overhaul

  India’s Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion has launched a review of the organisational structure of the IP office that could split the patent and trade mark departments and make them autonomous agencies

• Concerns grow over Indian trade mark office problems

  Admissions that over 44,000 trade mark files have gone missing in India and that the trade mark database is full of errors are just the latest in a litany of administrative errors, incompetence and corruption at the country’s trade mark offices

• Lawyers welcome corruption arrest in India

  The arrest of a gold-loving deputy trade mark registrar in Chennai last week for corruption could reinvigorate the drive to clean up India’s trade mark system, said lawyers this week

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