TIME TO BE MORE EXPLICIT

As an aid to those who work within the field of Community trade mark law, OHIM has added this potentially useful page entitled "Judgments of Community Trade Mark Courts concerning Community Trade Marks". While this facility is appreciated, the IPKat wonders if the time has now come to make it more useful to its users. The page lists just 30 cases so far, in the following format:

BE 10/02/03 FR (428 KB) Amazon - Summary (EN)
BE 03/10/02 NL (560 KB) Medianet - Summary (EN)
BE 19/04/02 NL (814 KB) Smirnoff Ice - Summary (EN)
BE 28/02/02 NL (884 KB) Vittel - Summary (EN)
BE 07/09/00 NL (895 KB) Black Barrel - Summary (EN)
DE 20/01/04 DE (5,8 MB) THE HOME DEPOT - Translation (EN)
DE 28/11/02 DE (587 KB) Goldbarren (3D)
DE 26/07/01 DE (1.5 MB) MOZART
DE 22/03/00 DE (2.4 MB) BETTY SPAGHETTY
FR 21/10/03 FR (864 KB) Shampoo by Michel Dervyn
FR 09/07/03 FR (501 KB) CARVIEW
FR 24/06/03 FR (640 KB) Martinelli
FR 05/03/02 FR (811 KB) Hello Kitty
AT 29/01/02 DE (794KB) MANPOWER
AT 13/03/02 DE (1 MB) OPUS ONE
SE 11/02/04 SV (356 KB) Real Madrid - Summary (EN)
SE 28/05/03 SV (919 KB) Concerning: CTM 57273, 57315 and 57778 (figurative marks) - Summary (EN)
SE 06/02/03 SV (773 KB) ST. HILL HOLLY HERBAL DIGESTIVE TEA - Summary (EN)
SE 28/11/02 SV (159 KB) NOKIA, XPRESS-ON - Summary (EN)
SE 31/10/02 SV (619 KB) COMBI - Summary (EN)
SE 26/01/01 SV (670 KB) ECDL - European Computer driving licence - Summary (EN)
SE 11/12/00 SV (490 KB) ECDL - European Computer driving licence - Summary (EN)
UK 29/06/04 EN (813 KB) Bar-X, OXO
UK 24/03/04 EN (176 KB) Compass
UK 17/03/04 EN (60 KB) Websphere
UK 15/01/04 EN (37 KB) SPIRIVA
UK 12/08/03 EN (37 KB) SPIRIVA
UK 12/03/03 EN (60 KB) Prudential
UK 06/09/02 EN (59 KB) PEBBLE BEACH
UK 31/07/02 EN (73 KB) Levis
UK 18/12/00 EN (126 KB) Mercedes-Benz
UK 12/10/00 EN (58 KB) DECON
UK 10/12/99 EN (1 MB) VIAGRA
The IPKat's thoughts on this facility are as follows:

* Parties' names. It would be helpful to tabulate also the names of the parties. Apart from the general interest in knowing who is going to court in CTM disputes, it will eventually be useful, when the same CTM gets litigated on a frequent basis, as a means of telling the cases apart (lawyers from Common Law countries generally refer to cases by the parties' names anyway, so this would be of assistance to them);

* Legal grounds. At present there is nothing to indicate whether the CTM is being litigated in infringement proceedings, in cancellation proceedings, or in transactional disputes involving assignments or licences. The utility of this information is beyond question.

* Marks in dispute. Where the case involves different signs (for example where the owner of a CTM is suing the user of an allegedly similar sign for infringement), it would be handy for the browser to know the identity of both marks.

* File size. The IPKat wonders how many people either want or need to know the size of the file that contains the note or the transcript of the decision in each case. Information concerning size of file is not thought necessary for OHIM's lists of its own decisions from the Boards of Appeal, the Opposition Division or the Cancellation Division.

* Word search. It is now common for databases of legal cases to be searchable by individual words (a good example is BAILII in the United Kingdom -- a vastly larger publicly accessible database than OHIM's is at present). The addition of a word search facility would enable users to pick out specific terms without the need to read through all the cases on the list.

* Communications. There is nowhere on the page that you can click and tell OHIM of any case you know about and that isn't on the list.

The IPKat says:
"This service is desirable and may prove to be very important in time and OHIM should be thanked for it. However, if OHIM makes it more useful and user-friendly at this early stage, when the number of listed cases is so small, it may save itself a lot of time and effort in changing the details of listed cases in the long run".
His feline friend Merpel adds:
"If you know of a CTM case heard by a national court but which is not on OHIM's list, please either notify OHIM directly or send it to the IPKat, who will forward it with his compliments".
TIME TO BE MORE EXPLICIT TIME TO BE MORE EXPLICIT Reviewed by Jeremy on Wednesday, November 17, 2004 Rating: 5

4 comments:

  1. It's worth noting that a number of those cases don't link through to the actual transcript of the case. Instead they link to a description of it within the speeches given at the European Judges' Symposium last year. Still half a loaf...
    I'd also really like to see grounds for the decision of the UK Trade Mark Office's lists of recently decided decision. As it stands, one has to open case to see what it's about.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you Mister IP Kat. I did not know this list existed. From the list of country initials I learn that only 7 countires of the EU have litigations on Community trademarks. What is the meaning of this?

    ReplyDelete
  3. to all of the major RSS feed directories on the Internet.

    ReplyDelete
  4. a lot of premium products and services being offered for free. What’s best is that there is a seemingly

    ReplyDelete

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