Spaniards confuse GEICAR and hey car select?
by Verena von Bomhard and Madelene Bauer – Published on 29 May, 2025 at Kluwer Trademark Blog v. By judgment of 30 April 2025, the General Court of the European Union upheld the decision of the First Board of Appeal of the EUIPO finding a likelihood...
Spain: new PTO cancellation proceedings and more news about trademark proceedings
by Verena von Bomhard and Inmaculada González López – Published on 09 August, 2022 at Kluwer Trademark Blog The night setting on contentious administrative appeals in Spain On 14 January 2023, some rather fundamental changes are going to be implemented regarding trademark proceedings in Spain. These...
Healthy things and Paris Bar – two new GC decisions on “weak marks”
by Verena von Bomhard – Published on 15 March, 2024 at Kluwer Trademark Blog On 13 March 2024, the General Court (3rd and 7th Chamber) issued two judgments dealing with weak marks in the sense the most trademark practitioners applaud, namely granting descriptive elements in trademarks...
BASMATI – or: Back into the Past?
by Verena von Bomhard – Published on 15 January 2024 at Kluwer Trademark Blog On AG Szpunar’s Opinion in Case C-801/22 P BASMATI was the first of the appeals to the CJEU in the three „Brexit cases“. The other two are APE TEES (EUIPO v Nowhere, C-337/22...
2023 GC practice in retrospect (Part 2)
by Verena von Bomhard – Published on 30 December 2023 at Kluwer Trademark Blog Part 1 of this year’s retrospective provided a general overview over the GC case law from 2023 with numbers and a special focus on genuine use cases. Part 2 now focuses on...
YIPPIE! for YUPPIE – 2023 GC practice in retrospect (Part 1)
by Verena von Bomhard – Published on 29 December 2023 at Kluwer Trademark Blog The year is ending and so it is time, once again, to look at what has been coming out of the General Court (GC) over the past 12 months. While the numbers...
International Law Talk Podcast: “Bad Faith in European Trademark Law”
by Verena von Bomhard We are happy to announce the new International Law Talk Podcast episode on Bad Faith in European Trademark Law. For this episode I had the honor of speaking with the leading expert in the field: Alexander von Mühlendahl, former Vice-President of the EUIPO,...
CJEU on “testarossa” – to the rescue of vintage brands
by Verena von Bomhard – Published on 15 February, 2021 at Kluwer Trademark Blog Vintage brands – generally well-known marks that have been phased out but live on in consumers’ memories – face the challenge that trademarks that are not used are cancelled. The CJEU judgment...
EU: Slogan IT’S LIKE MILK BUT MADE FOR HUMANS registrable
by Verena von Bomhard – Published on 8 February, 2021 at Kluwer Trademark Blog On 20 January 2021, the General Court handed down its judgment in the slogan case brought by Oatly AB against the EUIPO’s refusal to register “IT’S LIKE MILK BUT MADE FOR HUMANS”...
CJEU on EU trademark appeals in 2020 – year in review
by Verena von Bomhard – Published on 30 December, 2020 at Kluwer Trademark Blog Here‘s a look-back on the year that is about to end, with a promise not to say anything about Covid, Brexit, or Trump! This is about CJEU rulings in 2020 concerning appeals filed in trade...