KonikKlijke Philips Electronics NV v Remington Consumer Prodcuts Ltd, Case 299/99, 2003 RPC 2
Citation: KonikKlijke Philips Electronics NV v Remington Consumer Prodcuts Ltd, Case 299/99, 2003 RPC 2
Rule of thumb: If a trade mark is too broad with a product in their name such that it stops a whole market from trading properly, is this trade mark enforceable? No, as a general rule if a person’s trade mark is too broad such that it stops fair competition then it is not valid.
Judgment:
The overarching aim of preventing trade marks being too general being registered is to stop certain organisation gaining a monopoly out of the basic building blocks needed to create a good trade mark without paying them a license fee, and thereby monopolising the market, ‘an application to register a picture of a reel of cotton or a flag of coffee would succeed as they are not descriptive of the goods for which registration is sought; but that does not mean that a shape of an article is registrable in respect if the article shown in the application. To do so would enable a few traders to obtain registrations of all the best designs of an article and thereby monopolise those designs. In my view a shape of an article cannot be registered in respect of the goods of that shape unless it contains some addition to the shape of the article which has trade mark significance. It is that addition which makes it capable of distinguishing the trade mark owner’s goods from the sort of goods sold by another trader... was aimed at preventing a trader from monopolising by way of a trade mark registration shapes which added a substantial value to the goods over other shapes e.g. a lampshade, a telephone designed to appeal to appeal to the eye... (trade marks) are intended to exclude functional shapes and (patents) aesthetic type shapes. Thus the fact that the technical result of a shape is excellent and therefore the article can command a high price does not mean that it is excluded from registration...’.
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