Understanding Trademark Law Through the Lens of Halloween: A Spooky Guide

Halloween, with its pumpkins, costumes, and haunted houses, is one of the most exciting and creative times of the year. But behind the spooky masks and candy bowls lies a complex world of Intellectual Property Law, especially trademarks, which many businesses need to navigate carefully during the season.

The General Court of the European Union (EGC) decided that that a likelihood of confusion between the word/device mark “Master” of Modern Industrial & Trading Investment Co. Ltd and the earlier trademark “Coca Cola” of the Coca - Cola Company cannot be excluded (Judgment dated 11 December 2014; Case No.: T480/12).
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The Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM), the responsible office in the EU for registering Community Trademarks and Community Designs having the "automatic" effect throughtout 28 national EU Member States, just published a unique map which gives a quick overview on Intellectual Property (here: Trademarks, Designs, Patents and Copyrights).
The EGC (European General Court) decided that in the context of a computerized booking system, the final price to be paid must be indicated whenever the prices of air services are shown (Judgment dated 15 January 2015; C
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The world is filled with milion of brands but, behind most of them are only a few big cooperations. These companies control the gobal consumers markets for food, beverages, cleaning preperations, personal care products, cosmetics and cigarettes. They control the production of industrial sugar, fat and other ingredients which are essential for all other favourite cosumegoods. The German Newpaper „Die Zeit“ illustrated the big brands on sale and their revenues in Germany.
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The „TM5“ just published a Statistics about the development of Community Trademarks in 2014. Below you can see that 117.451 Community Trademark (CTM) Applications were received by OHIM in 2014. As you can see, the E-Filling is meanwhile the most popular application form since its introduction in 2005.
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[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkBNbcMR_Uo[/embed]
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SyncForce, founded in 1999, is a leading provider of business software that supports branded goods manufacturers. SyncForce also powers “Ranking the Brands”, which just published the Top 500 Franchise Ranking. Only franchise companies with a minimum of 10 units and with at least one being in the US are eligible to take part in the Franchise 500 ranking. The ranking company compared the franchise companies on the factors financial strength and stability-, growth rate-, size of the system,- the number of years of being in business-, the length of time it’s been franchising, startup costs,- percentage of terminations and if financing is provided. Below you can see the “Top 10” of the ranking:  

The French Trademark Office “L'Institut national de la propriété industrielle (INPI) and the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) refuseregistrations of the slogan „Je suis Charlie“.”

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The German Federal Patent Court clarified with its judgment (Judgment dated 5 August 2014; Case No.: 27 W (pat) 18/14) in the case “BOSCH” vs. “boshi” that likelihood of confusion is only given if various factors are cumulatively applicable: The similarity of the goods and services, script, sound and meaning of both trademarks and the reputation of the older trademark. Background of the Case and Subject Matter