The Chinese courts! However, Western companies struggle to have recognized the status of a Famous Brand (which can also be protected for products or services not similar to those of the core business). Recently, Peppa Pig and Puma have succeeded in their intent, but thanks to a widespread, continuous and prolonged presence on the Chinese market, which had to be [...]

There has been a long debate about  the protection of positioning marks which, in recent years, have been officially introduced into EU legislation. Protection is aimed at the position occupied by an element considered distinctive. In many cases these marks were not allowed for protection because they were considered either as decorative elements, or too simple (e.g. the red stamp [...]

In the evaluation of the correct defense of a brand, today the diffusion on the internet and on social networks can play an unsuspected role. For example, Apple filed Opposition against a trademark consisting of a stylized pear with a leaf on the stalk, for products not similar to its own, of course based on its own Apple device. The [...]

A decision of the Euipo Opposition Division (Please case) argues that in order to prove the reputation of the mark in a given territory, a knowledge threshold is necessary, to be assessed mainly on the basis of quantitative criteria such that the earlier mark must be known by a significant part of the public interested in the products or services [...]