Sufficient distinctiveness is one of the basic requirements for a trademark to be applied for at the Polish Patent office.
Sufficient distinctiveness is one of the basic requirements for a trademark to be applied for at the Polish Patent office. This means that a trademark must be capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one undertaking from those of other undertakings. If this requirement is not fulfilled, a trademark will not be considered eligible for protection. However, the Patent Office cannot refuse registration if the mark has acquired distinctiveness as a result of being used before the application date.
On April 16, 2007, a company Scotts Poland Sp.z o. o. filed with the Polish Patent Office an application for registration of a word trademark ‘Tarcznik BR’ for ‘fertilisers’ in Class 1 and ‘plant protective preparations’ in Class 5. The mark was subsequently found eligible for registration and obtained the right of protection No. R-210641.
In January 2009, a third party filed with the Polish Patent Office a request to cancel the trademark ‘Tarcznik BR’, claiming that the mark lacked sufficient distinctiveness as it was composed of word elements only indicating the intended purpose, function and use of the goods under the mark. Therefore, it claimed, granting protection for this kind of trademark resulted in depriving other parties of the possibility of conveying similar information about their competing products.
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distinctiveness, Polish Patent Office
