Double trademark application = bad faith?

The European Trademark Office, EUIPO, is currently making an interesting decision concerning the current legal construct of bad faith in European trademark law, which is currently being “formed”.

The EU legislator leaves it to the court to decide exactly what is a bad faith application. Thus, the legal term makes the rounds for the first time in the case of the Lindt Gold Bunny, in which three factors emerged.

• the fact that the applicant knows or needs to know that a third party in at least one Member State is using an identical or similar sign for an identical or similar product or service, which is bearing the mark for which the registration is requested could be confused
• the applicant’s intention to prevent that third party from continuing to use that sign
• the degree of legal protection enjoyed by the sign of the third party and the sign for which registration is sought.

Now EUIPO had to deal with a further form, namely the question and under what conditions repeated entries could be in bad faith. For the first time, the issue came up at the company/brand Pelikan and concluded that a re-application may be in bad faith if the purpose of the re-application is to artificially extend the period for non-use in order to avoid the loss of a right due to the avoid non-use.

The current case concerns the Monopoly brand. The Board of Appeal amended the initially negative attitude of EUIPO, since at the time of filing the application on 30 April 2010, an identical trade mark “MONOPOLY” had already been registered and registered three times before. EUIPO decided that while it was normal to register a large quantity of Nice-class and to extend the range with new applications, it was not acceptable to circumvent the usage requirement by adding a newly deposited trade mark by adding a newly deposited trade mark. other goods or services.

Anyone who has ever made new entries at EUIPO (the DPMA, incidentally, feels even worse) to expand a brand knows how great the chaos and confusion can be. This is to be counteracted by such requirements. From this, the obligation to use naturally also has its purpose and trademark owners should always be able to prove their use for all classes.

While it is likely that the current decision will go to the ECJ. The outcome is exciting, as McDonald’s recently lost the rights to the Big Mac brand because of a similar problem. Many people do not even know that there is a requirement to use brands!

Author: Marian Härtel

Marian Härtel ist Rechtsanwalt und Fachanwalt für IT-Recht mit einer über 25-jährigen Erfahrung als Unternehmer und Berater in den Bereichen Games, E-Sport, Blockchain, SaaS und Künstliche Intelligenz. Seine Beratungsschwerpunkte umfassen neben dem IT-Recht insbesondere das Urheberrecht, Medienrecht sowie Wettbewerbsrecht. Er betreut schwerpunktmäßig Start-ups, Agenturen und Influencer, die er in strategischen Fragen, komplexen Vertragsangelegenheiten sowie bei Investitionsprojekten begleitet. Dabei zeichnet sich seine Beratung durch einen interdisziplinären Ansatz aus, der juristische Expertise und langjährige unternehmerische Erfahrung miteinander verbindet. Ziel seiner Tätigkeit ist stets, Mandanten praxisorientierte Lösungen anzubieten und rechtlich fundierte Unterstützung bei der Umsetzung innovativer Geschäftsmodelle zu gewährleisten.