Brexit became a fact at the end of 2020. The consequences of this work in all directions. EU trade marks were automatically split in a national UK trademark (implicating double maintenance costs for the applicant). English lawyers are no longer entitled to act as representative and file EU trade marks (this must be done by a lawyer within the EU). But it also has big implications for pending issues.

The trademark application for the HelloFresh logo has been opposed successfully by the Czech company Linea Nivnice. It argued that the HelloFresh logo is confusingly similar to its word mark and logo HELLO. The Board of Appeal agrees with the European trademark authorities. But how is that possible? Can a company just claim to own a general word like HELLO?

In February, Chilean teacher Yohana Agurto lost her job. Being a single mother of four, her situation got even worse when Chile went into lockdown due to the Corona outbreak. But all of a sudden she had a brilliant idea when she saw a picture of Mel Gibson somewhere online. She still had a lot of organic honey in her basement. A new brand was born: Miel Gibson ("miel" being Spanish for honey). A picture of the actor taken from the movie Braveheart was used on the label. Sales were not booming, but it paid the bills and the kids could eat, so she told the New York Times.

There is a sequel to the case concerning Hema’s underwear. The question was if crocodile decorated kids underwear constitutes an infringement on the Lacoste logo. At first, the court ruled it was not. The picture is purely meant as a decoration, the consumer does not see a trademark in it. In the appeal, the coin lands on the other side. Market surveys play a major part in both court cases.

China’s trademark register works on a “first-to-file” basis. This allows trademark hijackers to quickly claim a foreign trademark, in the hope of selling it to the trademark owner later. Some hijackers go a step further and even seize products that are ready for shipping. An exception to this has been developed in case law. If products are only produced in China for export, then this cannot be a trademark infringement (the so-called OEM exception), as the Chinese consumer does not have any interaction with these products. In addition, the trademark holder must have a registration in the importing country. Recently a Chinese Court broke with this in its “HondaKit” ruling.