EU General Court rejects Ecolab trademark appeal
An EU court has affirmed a decision of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) to reject a trademark application by American conglomerate Ecolab.
The ruling was issued by the EU General Court today, January 17.
Ecolab applied to register the mark ‘Solidpower’ in May 2016. The mark covered classes 1, 3, 5, 9 and 37, including chemical products, detergents and disinfectants.
In April 2017, the EUIPO rejected the application, finding that the mark lacked distinctiveness and was descriptive of the goods and services concerned. The EUIPO’s Fifth Board of Appeal dismissed an appeal against the decision the following November.
Ecolab brought a further appeal to the General Court in January 2018. In its ruling today, the court said that the mark did not possess any “distinctive or fanciful character”, but was simply a combination of two elements that would be easily recognisable and well understood by the English-speaking public.
The company had argued in its appeal that the mark had a “vague and allusive” character that gave it distinctiveness.
The court rejected this argument, finding that the mark would give the impression to the consumer that the cleaning products were “strong and reliable”, which it found to be descriptive of the goods and services covered by the application.
Ecolab also argued that the EUIPO should have considered its trademark registrations in other English-speaking jurisdictions such as the US, New Zealand and Australia as evidence of the mark’s registrability.
The court said that the EUIPO had no obligation to recognise decisions from other jurisdictions when considering an application, and that the EU trademark system is autonomous and has its own specific rules.
Costs were awarded to the EUIPO.
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