German courts have formed a wide body of case law with respect to the principles governing the ‘likelihood of confusion’ between trademarks.
German courts have formed a wide body of case law with respect to the principles governing the ‘likelihood of confusion’ between trademarks.
Of course, many principles directly follow from European law, as interpreted by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), but national case law remains an important body of reference for practitioners and courts alike in all member states.
One recent decision of Germany’s Federal Supreme Court concerns likelihood of confusion in a case where the trademark has a clear descriptive appeal, or arouses clear descriptive associations, and contains some (possibly minor, but sufficiently distinctive) elements that set the mark apart from an entirely descriptive sign, and the attacked mark contains, or is, the descriptive sign (ie, without the distinctive elements of the trademark).
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Germany Federal Supreme Court, trademark confusion, pjur, spelling, trademark infringement
