Sakal Duty Free LTD, an Israel electrical goods importer and distributer registered “Apollo” as a trademark for various electrical goods including domestic irons mark 157544 for class – unchallenged, is in process of registering TM No. 157545 for kettles, electric frying pans, coffee machines, toasters, breadmakers, ovens and clothes dryers all in class 11 – this mark being challenged by Sh.B. Krishpin Paamon LTD. an established importer, and trademark No 164419 for dishwashers and washing machines under Class 7 – subject to cancellation proceedings also by Krishpin Paamon who has themselves subsequently tried to obtain registeration of Apollo for ovens, washing machines, hobs, dishwashers, airconditioners, microwave ovens, clothes dryers, kettles, electric frying pans, coffee machines and toasters; the relevant applications being held up by the current oppostion and cancellation proceedings.
Sakal has used the mark since 1998, with the first use being for goods imported by Krishpin Paamon, who’d used the mark for 40 years, but never registered it.
Krishpin Paamon adopted the mark for electrical goods against the background of the US Space Program of the Sixties. It appears that the term Apollo gives as sense of high-techiness and future promise for electrical goods, at least to customers not familiar with the Olympian deity’s heritage and probably links to gods of the ancient local tribe – the Hittites.
Use of the mark is chilled by Tadiran using the term Apollo for refrigerators and Freezers and also for airconditioning units, and by HP using the term for inkjet printers.
Sakal’s marks were cancelled and Sh.B. Krishpin Paamon LTD. will be allowed to proceed, with their usage of the mark for ainconditioning units and perhaps for white metal appliances expected to be challenged by Tadiran.
What’s interesting about the current decision is that Shmulovich, the arbitrator of iP, effectively recognized unregistered common law trademark rights whilst formally denying their existence. He also recognizes Sakal’s ussage of the mark as a kind of unregistered license of an unregistered mark. This contrasts the recent Car Glass ruling where usage has to be registered in trademark register.
In the past, even long and wide usage has been lost due to lack of registration. The classic example of this is Lego, an Israeli company making irrigation equipment with a year pedigree who last rights to use their unregistered mark in the UK – a country with a stronger common law tradition than Israel – to Lego, a Danish toy manufacturer, founded some 28 years after the Israeli company.
