The Swedish Court of Patent Appeals has upheld a registration for a trademark strongly resembling Gucci’s famous monogram that was filed by Gun Gabrielsson director of a tiny Swedish company in Gothenburg, Sweden. Gucci, suffers from pirate goods and now will have to manage without their famous double-G logo trademark protected in Sweden.
Back in 1954, Chanel won a trademark battle in Israel against a third party manufacturing perfume, where the judge ruled “Thou shalt not steal”, which, was, of course, plagiarism from the Bible.
Another related Israel Trademark case was Versace, where a third party registered the name and the fashion house started but abandoned opposition proceedings, arguably giving up rights and estoppelling themselves. Nevertheless, 20 years on, the Israel Patent Office allowed Versace to challenge the trademarks, accepted arguments and voided the marks.
In general, courts around the world may allow people to trademark businesses based on their name, so, for example, Lego couldn’t stop a Ms Lego opening an art gallery in Denmark, but monograms?
