Luis Vuitton Secures Protection Over Well-Known \u2018Damier Azur\u2019 Trademark, Tesla Unsuccessful in Securing \u2018Teslaquila\u2019 Trademark, Marvel and BoxLunch Cooking up Some Marvel Magic and more brought to you by the Trademark Attorneys at BananaIP (BIP) Counsel.<\/p>\n
Business to business (B2B) portal Indiamart (\u2018Plaintiff\u2019), filed a suit before the Delhi High Court for a permanent injunction to restrain Akash Verma (\u2018Defendant\u2019) from deceptively using its trademark, INDIAMART. The Plaintiff, an internet-based marketplace with free and paid listings of products and services, had claimed in the suit that it had started using the brand name since 1996 and is the registered holder of the trademark and the domain www.indiamart.com<\/a>. The Plaintiff came to know that the Defendant has been fraudulently using its name\/trademark\/logo\/trade dress duping customers into believing that the services provided by him originate from the Plaintiff. The Court passed an ex parte ad-interim injunction in favour of the Plaintiff. The Court stated that the use of the mark INDIAMART involved not only cheating the company, but also defrauding innocent customers into believing that the Defendant is their representative and taking their money fraudulently. Therefore, the Defendant has been restrained from using the mark INDIAMART.<\/p>\n Citation<\/u><\/strong>: INDIAMART INTERMESH LIMITED vs. MR. AKASH VERMA & ORS (I.A. 5594\/2020)<\/em><\/p>\n The General Court of the European Union, in a recent judgement, overturned the decision of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) to nullifing Louis Vuitton\u2019s famous \u2018Damire Azur\u2019 trademark.<\/p>\n In 2008, the fashion accessories brand Louis Vuitton was granted trademark protection by the EUIPO over its \u2018Damire Azur\u2019 chequerboard pattern, made up of brown and beige squares. The Damier Azur trademark was used extensively on leather bags and related accessories.<\/p>\n In 2016, however, the Cancellation Division of the EUIPO, acting on an application filed by a third party, declared the trademark to be invalid. The reason stated was that the mark lacked a distinctive character and was too common to be monopolised by a single brand. This decision of the Cancellation Division was appealed by Louis Vuitton unsuccessfully before the European Union Board of Appeals. The luxury brand then further challenged the decision before the General Court of the European Union, arguing that the Damier Azur trademark pattern had acquired a distinctive character through continued use of the mark, and it was now a \u2018well-known mark\u2019.<\/p>\n The General Court concurred with the decision of the Board of Appeals to the extent that the mark was not inherently distinctive, but also accepted Luois Vuitton\u2019s contentions regarding the acquired distinctiveness of the mark. The General Court held that through continued widespread use of the Damier Azur trademark, consumers would only associate the brown and beige chequerboard pattern with Louis Vuitton, and no one else.<\/p>\n The General Court has reverted the matter to the Board of Appeals of the European Union, to decide the matter in light of the General Court\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n Elon Musk\u2019s Tesla was recently denied trademark registration by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), for the mark \u2018Teslaquila\u2019. Tesla, the American automobile company, known for its electric car had filed a trademark application for \u2018Teslaquila\u2019, a Tesla brand tequila, for alcoholic beverages in 2018.<\/p>\n However, the registration was refused by the Examiner at the USPTO, as there already exists a mark by the name of \u2018Spirit Tesla\u2019, registered by a Siberian company, that produces plum brandy under the same name. The Examiner objected against the mark stating that the usage of the word \u2018Tesla\u2019 by both companies in their trademark would lead to confusion among customers.<\/p>\n Further, Tesla\u2019s argument that the two companies were producing different liquors, ie. tequila and plum brandy, and hence there would be no incidence of confusion among consumers was also rejected by the Examiner.<\/p>\n Exciting news for all the Marvel fans out there. The multimedia and entertainment company Marvel has collaborated with BoxLunch, a US based merchandise retailer to launch Marvel Eat the Universe collection. The collection is inspired by the iconic characters of the Marvel Universe and Marvel\u2019s popular YouTube cooking series Eat the Universe. The collection will include accessories such as apparel, home goods, cups, bags amongst other things and will be available at the BoxLunch\/EatTheUniverse website.<\/p>\n US based cosmetics company TULA Skincare has partnered with Instagram influencer and musician Courtney Shields \u2018Glow Hour\u2019, a brightening and neutralizing eye balm product. The eye balm is designed to neutralize and treat under-eye circles and protect from the damaging effects of blue light. The product will be available on Tula\u2019s website and in select Ulta Beauty outlets.<\/p>\n Darley Newman, host of the popular travel television series \u2018Travels with Darley\u2019 had recently filed a dispute with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center for alleged cybersquatting by her ex-husband Chip Ward. The domains www.darleynewman.com<\/a>, www.darleynewman.org<\/a>, www.equitrekking.com<\/a>, www.equitrekking.org<\/a>, and www.travelswithdarley.com<\/a> have been registered by Ward in his personal capacity or through his organization Lambda Cubed LLC. Newman contented that the domain names were supposed to be transferred to her name, pursuant to an agreement, after her divorce from Ward.\u00a0 However, the existence of any such agreement was denied by Ward.<\/p>\n The WIPO panellist Scott Blackmer denied Newman\u2019s contentions and found that none of the domain names were used in bad faith.\u00a0 The Panel further held that such disputes are not under the purview of the UDRP, and should be settled in the Courts instead and has therefore denied the complaint.<\/p>\n In a new twist in the ongoing battle between the Madhya Pradesh (MP) government and the GI Registry going back to 2008, the MP government has filed a petition before the Supreme Court to challenge the Madras High Court\u2019s (HC) decision to not grant a GI tag to its Basmati rice-growing regions. The new petition has been filed in light of the MP government losing two cases earlier this year in the Madras HC where MP had challenged the exclusion of 13 MP districts from a map submitted by the Agriculture and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) for basmati GI tag. APEDA is the apex govt body responsible for the export promotion of agricultural products and had filed the application seeking GI tag for basmati rice.<\/p>\n Authored and compiled by Uma T.S & Shreya Chaddha<\/strong> Disclaimer:<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0Kindly note that the news bulletin has been put together from different sources, primary and secondary, and BananaIP\u2019s reporters may not have verified all the news published in the bulletin. You may write to\u00a0<\/em>contact@bananaip.com<\/em><\/a>\u00a0for corrections and take down.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The bulletin reviews key trademark developments including Louis Vuitton\u2019s Damier Azur win, Indiamart\u2019s legal success, and MP\u2019s Supreme Court move over Basmati rice GI. It also covers major brand licensing deals and domain name dispute outcomes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":11,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,11],"tags":[11062,3298,2424,8048,5,2027,712,4857],"class_list":["post-69312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-intellectual-property","category-trademarks","tag-basmati-rice-gi","tag-brand-licensing","tag-domain-name-disputes","tag-indiamart","tag-intellectual-property","tag-louis-vuitton","tag-supreme-court","tag-trademark-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69312"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141138,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69312\/revisions\/141138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}INTERNATIONAL TRADEMARK UPDATES<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Luis Vuitton Secures Protection Over Well-Known \u2018Damier Azur\u2019 Trademark<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Tesla Unsuccessful in Securing \u2018Teslaquila\u2019 Trademark<\/strong><\/h3>\n
BRAND LICENSING UPDATES<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Marvel and BoxLunch Cooking up Some Marvel Magic<\/strong><\/h3>\n
TULA Collaborates with Instagram Influencer for Beauty Product<\/strong><\/h3>\n
DOMAIN NAME DISPUTE UPDATES<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Travel Show Host Loses Domain Name Dispute<\/strong><\/h3>\n
GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATION UPDATES<\/strong><\/h2>\n
MP Government Approaches Supreme Court Over Basmati Rice GI Tag<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\nAbout BIP\u2019s Trademark Attorneys<\/strong>
\nThe Trademark News Bulletin is brought to you by the Trademark\/Copyright, IP Transactional Strategy Divisions of BananaIP Counsels, a Top IP Firm in India. Led by\u00a0<\/em>Sanjeeth Hegde<\/em><\/a>, BIP\u2019s trademark attorneys are among the leading experts in the field. If you have any questions, or need any clarifications, please write to\u00a0<\/em>contact@bananaip.com<\/em><\/a>\u00a0with the subject: Trademark News.<\/em>
\nThe weekly trademark news initiative is a part of their pro bono work and is aimed at spreading trademark awareness. You are free to share the news with appropriate attribution and backlink to the source.<\/em><\/p>\n