You may count me among the lucky, my first name that is. In this edition of “Mark your Word” we are going to deal with first names which have also been submitted for word marks. To be clear, we are again dealing only with EU and German law.

You gather a few of your mates together, perhaps you are planning a stag or hen night, and you want to design some shirts for the occasion. You put the order in and what happens: some of them were rejected because those names have been entered as word marks. Poor John or Sandy (both word marks) would be (hypothetically) shirtless for the occasion. I can completely understand people getting up in arms: “That’s MY name. I can do with it what I want and no one can stop me!”

Yes and no.
continue reading ‘Mark your Word II – More on European Trademark Law’

I thought I would take some time to sit down with Sandy from our Legal department and try to get a crash course on basic European and German law – specifically word marks and trademarks. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. We’ve seen and experienced over the last few years how some quite unbelievable word marks have been registered for the “Nice Classification 25” (textiles) protecting them from being printed on any article of clothing. We thought it would be useful for you to see our perspective on trademarks, brands and word marks and all of the curious legal developments we “discover” every day.

We don’t know every single word mark, and some aren’t even worth mentioning. (A good place to start searching for them is here or here.) We do notice however that word marks lead to discussions and general confusion, especially when we find one on a product and have to deactivate it. We aren’t doing this just for fun nor are we doing it to annoy you.

It is completely incomprehensible for us why some everyday words, names or even numbers are protected. On the other hand there are some trademarks which are “only” everyday words whose protection doesn’t surprise us, like “Hoover”, “Coke” or “Frisbee”. These are established brands which have made it into everyday speech, but it is generally understood and accepted that they can’t be printed on a shirt.
continue reading ‘Mark your Word - Discussion about European Trademark Laws (I)’