Why brand owners could lose rights in Europe
18 October 2011
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Emma Barraclough, London
IP owners with trade marks in Europe should review their portfolios before the IP Translator decision to avoid losing the scope of their rights
Judges at the Court of Justice are now considering questions referred to them in IP Translator over the scope of protection provided by class headings in trade mark applications.
OHIM adopts a different approach to many member states within Europe, and the Court is expected to decide which one is correct: the means-what-it-says approach used by IP offices in France, Germany and the UK, or the class-heading-covers-all policy used by OHIM and a minority of member state offices including Bulgaria and Estonia.
Under the first approach, applicants who identify the goods for which they are seeking protection using the words of the Nice Classification class headings are only given a registration for products that fall within the dictionary definition of the words themselves.
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