CJEU backs German company in TM fight with ex-distributor
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has rejected a French company’s application to invalidate the trademark owned by its former supplier.
The case dealt with the issue of two companies that were economically linked at one point, and whether there is a likelihood of confusion in such cases.
It arose in 2010 when building materials company Gugler France asked the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) to invalidate an EU trademark for ‘Gugler’, owned by a separate German company of the same name.
The case made its way to the EU General Court, which ruled that there was no likelihood of confusion as the two companies were economically linked. Gugler France had been a distributor of the German company’s since 2002 and had been granted a licence for the trademark in question.
But with there no longer being an active relationship between the two, Gugler France appealed the ruling to the CJEU, arguing that it had no control over the goods manufactured by the German supplier.
According to the French company, for the purposes of a confusion analysis, there was no economic link between the two because “there is no guarantee that the goods in question are manufactured under the control of a single undertaking which is accountable for their quality”.
But the CJEU rejected this argument and affirmed the General Court’s findings.
In a decision issued last week, the CJEU backed the General Court’s position that whether there is an ‘economic link’ between the companies should be based on “substantive” rather than “formal” criteria.
Gugler France was ordered to pay costs for its unsuccessful appeal.
Did you enjoy reading this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories sent like this straight to your inbox.
Today’s top stories
COVID-19 website registrations hitting 4,000 per day
