ECJ SAYS CLOTHING COMPANIES CANNOT ASSUME TRADEMARK RIGHTS ON FREE GIFTS
January 1st, 2009
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that clothing companies cannot automatically gain trademark rights to non-clothing products they give away free to promote their wares. The precedent-making decision comes in a case involving Austrian clothing company Maselli-Strickmode GmbH, which claimed it had secured additional trademark rights for free gifts (a non alcoholic-drink) branded with its established WELLNESS clothing mark. This was challenged by drinks manufacturer Silberquelle, which claimed Maselli had not used the WELLNESS mark for ...
Full access to this article can be arranged with permission from the client that first ordered it. Please contact us to request access. Entries are uploaded to our archive at least one year after being published by a client – free access is restricted to International News Services journalists for background research only. The article date indicates when copy was filed to a client, not when posted to this archive. Upon client requests, International News Services will remove such articles from the archive or not upload them in the first place. They are included to demonstrate the breadth of topics undertaken by the agency and also to help promote clients’ coverage.