Annual Review of European Trademark Law - 2023 in Review

The Higher Regional Court of Vienna considered the scope of protection of a three-dimensional mark for a bottle containing “healing waters,” the Brussels Business Court in Belgium considered the validity of a mark for a famous shoe sole, the Spanish Supreme Court considered the validity of a mark for a “naked” cider bottle. [...] At the same time, the Court agreed with the Board’s assessment that the conflicting signs were phonetically identical, at least with regard to the part of the relevant public perceiving them as representations of the letter “Q.” Interestingly, the Court also agreed with the Board that neither of the signs had a meaning for the relevant public. [...] The Court then addressed the alleged infringement of Article 7(1)(c) of the 2017 EUTM Regulation and analyzed the series of factors taken into account by the Board of Appeal, which mostly concerned the German-speaking part of the relevant public. [...] The Court of Turin first took this approach in the 2008 Smart Car decision.12 The Court of Turin followed the same line of reasoning at first instance in the present case, ruling that the VESPA shape did not confer “substantial value” on the basis that “the incentive to buy the scooter which has the shape of the mark in question does not depend solely on the specific aesthetic characteristics of t. [...] 1 of Santander21 and later the Provincial Court of Cantabria22 accepted part of the arguments put forward by Sidra S and declared the trademark of the bottle invalid for lack of distinctiveness and because it consisted of the shape of a product necessary to obtain a technical result.23 The rulings of the two courts were overturned by the Spanish Supreme Court on July 19, 2023, which, in line with.