The plaintiff filed within a multiple design patent application the complete form of a pencil. The pencil consisted of a spiral at the upper part of the pencil and an additional holding clip. In addition, the plaintiff registered the upper part of the pencil showing the spiral without a clip. The defendant filed a legal… more

The legal situation Communication No 4/03 of the President of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market of 16 June 2003 concerning the use of the class headings of the Nice Classification provides in its Point IV: ‘The 34 classes for goods and the 11 classes for services comprise the totality of all goods… more

Executive Summary? A ‘Unitary Patent’ is expected to be available from 2014 on, by means of which a patent with unitary effect in all of the 24 participating EU states will be granted with only one request and without further validating the European patent in any one of the desired participating states. Only one unitary… more

The European Commission has pursued its proposal to amend the CTM Regulations and the CTM Directive. These regulations will become legally valid in spring 2014. The changes are not very revolutionary, but a few changes might also be of interest to trademark owners. In detail: A mark will in future be called European Trademark instead… more

The legal situation Revocation of a German trademark can be requested, if the mark has not been genuinely used during 5 consecutive years. If the trademark has been used only for some of the goods and services covered by its specification, it will be revoked only partially, namely for those products it has not been… more