June 18, 2015
Attempt to cancel Lego man trade mark “blocked”
Attempt to cancel Lego man trade mark “blocked”
A number of mainstream news media sources (including The Times and the BBC News website) have been noting yesterday’s decision by the General Court of the European Union to reject an attempt by a British construction toy company to cancel Lego’s 3d Community Trade Mark for the shape of their Lego man. Lego had achieved registration for the mark back in 2000 but in 2012, Best-Lock applied to have the registration invalidated on inherent registrability grounds. In particular, Best-Lock argued that the mark fell foul of two of the “shape objections”, namely that the contested trade mark consisted of a shape determined by the nature of the goods themselves and consisted exclusively of the shape of goods necessary to obtain a technical result. However, the penultimate appeal body on European trade mark law upheld the original decision, rejecting the attack and holding the 3d mark registrable. This is a second recent pro “shape brand” owner 3d trade mark decision for a classic toy brand following Rubik’s success last month ( our blog here). This must be especially pleasing for Lego who have themselves in the past been on the wrong end of and become leading case law on trade mark shape objections.  
Tags
Trademarks /  Disputes

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