Casino game trademark too descriptive, EU court rules
A company has been refused a trademark for a casino-style game it develops, because the mark applied for was too descriptive.
In a decision handed down yesterday, October 17, the EU General Court denied Murka a trademark for ‘Scatter Slots’.
The judgment upholds a European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) examiner’s decision and a subsequent ruling by the office’s appeal board.
Murka, based in the British Virgin Islands, had applied to register the term in class 41—which includes online games and casinos.
According to EUIPO guidance applicants must not monopolise a sign that “merely describes the goods and/or services that you offer”.
The court said use of the word ‘scatter’, a reference to a ‘scatter symbol’, is a concept that is “very well known” to the relevant consumers. The same applies to the term ‘slots’, which “immediately brings to mind slot machines”.
Scatter symbols are a feature in many slot games that act as a key to unlocking bonus features.
Murka first attempted to register the term in September 2015 but its application was rejected. The examiner, in a decision published in January 2016, concluded that consumers would perceive the mark to be referring to betting and entertainment services as well as other areas covered by class 41.
In March of that year, Murka appealed against the decision but the EUIPO’s First Board of Appeal rejected the challenge the following June.
Murka then appealed to the General Court.
On descriptiveness, the court noted that although it is common ground that the word ‘scatter’ can also mean “to cause to separate and go in different directions”, consumers will “immediately and without further thought understand the use of the word as referring to a ‘scatter symbol’” in view of the services in question.
“It must be held that the mere combination of the words ‘scatter’ and ‘slots’, each of which is descriptive of a characteristic of the services concerned, is itself also descriptive of a characteristic of those services,” the court wrote.
Murka has been ordered to pay the EUIPO’s costs.
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