Avanti loses appeal over ‘fanciful’ trademark
The General Court yesterday confirmed the dismissal of German-based recruitment agency Avanti’s trademark application for its name.
The company applied for the trademark in 2015 at the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). In the figurative trademark, the ‘v’ in the company’s name was replaced with a red tick.
However, the application was rejected by the EUIPO in March 2016, and an appeal was dismissed in February 2017.
The Board of Appeal of the EUIPO declared that because the word ‘avanti’ is common in both Italian and German, it was relevant to consider those that speak the two languages.
The German company argued that the General Court should annul the contested decision and authorise the registration of the trademark.
Meanwhile, the EUIPO said that the court should dismiss the action and order the applicant to pay the costs.
Avanti alleged that the Board of Appeal “did not make an assessment of the mark applied for as the word ‘Avanti’ was not the subject of the application for registration”.
The company claimed that the trademark consists of a lower case ‘a’—followed by a tick, a symbol meaning ‘OK’—and then the word ‘anti’. It said that the second character is “fanciful” and not a capital ‘V’.
But the EUIPO said that the characters in the applied for trademark are not distinctive enough and that the slogan would be read as a whole word.
The General Court ruled in favour of the EUIPO and dismissed the application. Avanti was ordered to pay costs.
Did you enjoy reading this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox.
Today’s top stories
Federal Circuit rules against Google in patent challenge
German film name too vulgar to be trademarked
#metoo trademark application withdrawn
European Commission fines Qualcomm nearly €1bn
Already registered?
Login to your account
If you don't have a login or your access has expired, you will need to purchase a subscription to gain access to this article, including all our online content.
For more information on individual annual subscriptions for full paid access and corporate subscription options please contact us.
To request a FREE 2-week trial subscription, please signup.
NOTE - this can take up to 48hrs to be approved.
For multi-user price options, or to check if your company has an existing subscription that we can add you to for FREE, please email Adrian Tapping at atapping@newtonmedia.co.uk