FORTHCOMING ATTRACTIONS

Next Thursday in the European Court of Justice ...

The IPKat has spotted these three mouth-watering items, all on Thursday 23 March:

Judgment is being given in Case C-206/04 P Mülhens v Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market. This is an appeal against the Court of First Instance ruling of 3 March 2004 in Case T-355/02 Mühlens v OHIM, in which the CFI agreed that there was no likelihood of confusion between the figurative SIR and word ZIRH mark for men's toiletries in Germany (the German courts have since come to quite the opposite conclusion, making some rude comments about the CFI in the meantime). The Advocate General's Opinion in this case is here.

There are also two Opinions: (i) Opinion C-24/05 P and (ii) C-25/05 P Storck v Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market. Both appear to be appeals against the same judgment of the Court of First Instance of 10 November 2004 in Case T-402/02 August Storck KG v OHIM, where the CFI dismissed an appeal against OHIM's refusal to register a figurative trade mark constituted by the representation of a twisted wrapper for 'sweets' (left) within Class 30.

The IPKat wonders whether there's been some sort of clerical error; he suspects that one of these appeals should be against Case T-396/02, in which it was not the shape of the wrapper but of the confection itself (right) that was refused registration.


... and tonight on US TV

The IPKat has learned from his American friend Steve Getzoff that Scott Baker will be appearing on CNBC's "On The Money" tonight, to talk about current intellectual property and free speech issues including the Da Vinci Code, BlackBerry and the Howard Stern cases. This feature, the Kat is reliably informed, will air between 7.15pm and 7.45pm Eastern Time (4.15pm to 4.45pm Pacific Time) today.