Trade dress and 3D marks in the EU

To understand how trade dress is being safeguarded in Europe, we need to answer the question, what is “trade dress”?

We can define trade dress as a set of characteristics—not only visual, but also sensorial—that allow a consumer to distinguish a particular product or service from the others that coexist in the market. These characteristics can include the way some products are displayed in a store, furniture patterns, ambient music, smell and so on. Also, a particular packing or product shape can be understood as a trade dress.

Below, we can find some examples of the protection of trade dress using 3D trademarks in European Union countries and court decisions in connection to this particular type of IP protection.

Lego v European Union Intellectual Property Office (2010)

The use of 3D trademarks by Lego—and the outcomes of the trademark applications—are very controversial. The application of the world-famous Lego bricks as a trademark was refused by the Cancellation Division in 2004.

Figure 1: Lego figure (source: EUIPO)