We recently discussed trademark rights that you can claim on a portrait. In practice, in most cases only the portraits of famous people have a brand function. We recently saw two applications in the European trademark register that are a [...]
This month, the General Court of the European Union ruled on appeal that the shape of the Rubik's cube cannot be registered as an EU trademark. This confirms the decision that was already made in 2017. Since 1999, the cube [...]
With trademark agencies, wordmarks and logos are welcome guests. These trademarks are generally accepted unless they have distinctiveness issues. Signs that are less traditional, on the other hand, have a much harder time. A color mark, a sound, films and [...]
Street artist Banksy has launched a homewares shop in a dispute over a trademark, stating he had been forced into taking the unusual step of opening his own homewares store following a legal dispute with a greetings card company. Gross [...]
Sometimes you see a product and you can’t quite put your finger on it what’s wrong. It looks like a product you know. It is the name? Is it the colour? Then it hits you. It’s the font! It may be [...]
Bixby, that's the name of Samsung's virtual assistant. Bixby is not just another name chosen by Samsung. A whole process has probably preceded this. For these types of projects, a name creation agency is often called in to propose a [...]
This week we saw in the news that Versace made a sensitive product mistake: cities are listed on a t-shirt with the country behind it. This t-shirt led to a fuss in China when it became clear that Hong Kong [...]
People who love Italian cuisine a lot and therefore often use Parmesan cheese will probably be familiar with Grana Padano. This is a cheese that resemble Parmesan cheese but does not come from the Parma area but northern Italy. Since [...]
Brand mistakes are of all times. Brand names that are suitable trademarks in one country can have a funny or negative meaning in another. For example, Fiat Uno means Fiat Crock in Finnish and the denim mark Kut has a [...]
Kim Kardashian is being forced to change the name of her shapewear line after backlash from fans, who called her out for trying to trademark it. Kardashian‘s new shapewear line was initially named "Kimono", alluding to her first name 'Kim'. [...]