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Dot-eu registry EURid has got tough with registrars it believes are warehousing domain names. On July 24 it suspended 74,000 domain names and sued 400 registrars for breach of contract.

Bacardi has staked its claim to the Havana Club rum brand in the US on the back of a USPTO decision not to renew a trade mark owned by the Cuban government and joint venture partner Pernod Ricard.

Shahnaz Mahmud, New York

Emma Barraclough, London and Brussels

Shahnaz Mahmud, London

Emma Barraclough, London

A company that has a trade mark filing in place in a foreign jurisdiction has multiple options when considering an expansion of its trade mark rights into the United States. Specifically, US trade mark law provides several mechanisms pursuant to which a foreign trade mark owner can use the priority established by a foreign trade mark filing when making a filing in the United States.

In a recent judgment concerning interim measures (case Ö 566-06 – Roche Aktiebolag v Orifarm AB – June 9 2006), the Swedish Supreme Court ruled it objectively necessary for a parallel trader to relabel an imported pharmaceutical product with another company's registered trade mark in order to gain effective access to the Swedish market. This exception to the exclusive rights provided by a trade mark was found justified with respect to patient safety and resistance from consumers to a product marketed under a different name to that marketed by the trade mark proprietor.

As the use of slogans to promote and build awareness of goods and services becomes a universal phenomenon, companies who use slogans and have them splashed across their products or at their place of business have become more aware of the need to protect the slogans as trade marks, in addition to protecting their traditional marks. This is because consumers are now more aware of the various slogans being used and it can be argued that slogans can be considered to be part of the brand itself.

According to Turkish IP law, there is no distinction whatsoever between famous, or highly reputed marks, and well-known marks. The law simply refers to well-known marks as one single concept.