Marques Class 46 (information by Suvi Haavisto) reports about an interesting case regarding trademark lawsuit in Finland.
Laulumaa Huonekalut Oy, a furniture producer, filed a trademark infringement claim against Pohjanmaan Kaluste Oy, claiming that this company had been using its registered combine trademarks SARA, OLIVIA and SOFIA (in class 20) for branding different items of furniture. Laulumaa asked the Court to order Pohjanmaan to cease the infringement and a compensation to be paid.
Pohjanmaan rejected this claim stating that those names were widespread in Finland for branding furniture for many years so in light of this they are not distinctive.
The Court allied with Pohjanmaan confirming that the names are not distinctive. The scope of protection of the already registered marks is limited only to their combine nature. In the case at hand, however, Pohjanmaan didn’t use these combine trademarks but only word names in standard font. So in that regard, there is no infringement.
This case is quite indicative of the way how applicants define their trademark strategies. Some companies, in an attempt to escape possible trademark refusals by Patent Offices, applied for not so distinctive signs combining them with graphical elements or fonts. Although they can register such marks successfully most of the times, this, unfortunately, doesn’t mean that they can rely on them in such lawsuits because of the limited scope of protection.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PLANET 