TRADEMARK LABEL CASE GIVES GUIDANCE ON PACKAGING LOGO PROTECTION
April 1st, 2008
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has ruled basic packaging logo designs (for instance Adidas' three stripes) can be protected legally by their owners, only where such symbols do not indicate a general category of goods. Judges said in a case involving German sportswear maker Adidas and Dutch rivals Marca Mode, C&A, H&M and Vendex that Adidas' three stripes had no obvious link to sportswear and so could be protected: its rivals use two stripes logos. If, however, Adidas used a shoe-shape logo to market trainers, its protection would be lost, ...
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.