Summaries of judgments made in collaboration with the Portuguese judges and référendaire of the General Court (Maria José Costeira, Ricardo Silva Passos and Esperança Mealha)
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Judgment of the General Court (Ninth Chamber, Extended Composition), T‑307/17 – Adidas Ag / Euipo (Three Parallel Stripes), 19 June 2019
EU trade mark — Invalidity proceedings — EU figurative mark representing three parallel stripes — Absolute grounds for invalidity — No distinctive character acquired through use — Article 7(3) and Article 52(2) of Regulation (EC) No 207/2009 (now Article 7(3) and Article 59(2) of Regulation (EU) 2017/1001) — Form of use unable to be taken into account — Form that differs from the form under which the mark has been registered by significant variations — Inversion of the colour scheme
Link: http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=7B33A741BDC26F1AC10417E8B24C5012?text=&docid=215208&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=3595544
1. Facts
In 2014, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) registered, in favour of adidas, the following EU trade mark for clothing, footwear and headgear:

In its application for registration, adidas had described the mark as consisting of three parallel equidistant stripes of identical width, applied on the product in any direction.
In 2016, following an application for declaration of invalidity filed by the Belgian undertaking Shoe Branding Europe BVBA, EUIPO annulled the registration of that mark on the ground that it was devoid of any distinctive character, both inherent and acquired through use. According to EUIPO, the mark should not have been registered. In particular, adidas had failed to establish that the mark had acquired distinctive character through use throughout the EU.
2. Decision
The General Court (GC) upholds the annulment decision, dismissing the action brought by adidas against the EUIPO decision.
The GC notes that the mark is not a pattern mark composed of a series of regularly repetitive elements, but an ordinary figurative mark, and that the forms of use which fail to respect the other essential characteristics of the mark, such as its colour scheme (black stripes against white background), cannot be taken into account. Therefore, EUIPO was correct to dismiss numerous pieces of evidence produced by adidas on the ground that they concern other signs, such as, in particular, signs for which the colour scheme had been reversed.
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