Peter Schramm и Guillaume Fournier published an engaging article for Lexology which reveals some problem for the US company Apple to register its word mark APPLE in Switzerland.
In the case at hand, the local Patent Office refused the company’s wordmark for the following goods: in Class 14 – jewellery goods and in Class 28 – games and playing cards, electronic games, manually operated and electronic computer games, video games, interactive games and interactive computer toys.
According to the Office in the case of jewellery, apple is widely used as their form due to which it is descriptive.
Regarding toys and computer games, the Office considers that apple as a fruit is a common form either for their material creation in the case of physical toys or as an image and motive in the case of computer games.
This comes to show how important submitting of pieces of evidence for acquired distinctiveness is concerning such marks especially in countries such as Switzerland where the interpretation for descriptiveness and distinctiveness could be quite interesting.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PLANET 