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Italiano The General Court declared the invalidity of EU Trade Mark n. 007497191 for “fresh fruit” in class 31
By judgment of 13 November 2024 (T-426/23), the General Court declared the invalidity of the European Union Trade Mark n. 007497191, only for “fresh fruit” in class 31.
The General Court held that the trade mark represents a simple geometric shape and that it does not contain any characteristic element that the public can perceive as distinctive and capable of distinguishing and characterizing the products of a company from those of other companies.
More in details, the Court highlighted that, in the sector of bananas,
“oval labels are commonly used as they are easy to stick onto curved fruit. In those circumstances, the shape of the contested mark, affixed to fresh fruits, such as bananas, will not be capable of attracting the attention of the relevant public and of differentiating those goods from other goods on the market, but will simply be perceived as a decorative element”.
Not even the combination of blue and yellow colors was deemed suitable to confer distinctive character to the mark.
In this regard the Court specifies that
“colours and abstract combinations thereof cannot therefore be regarded as intrinsically distinctive save in exceptional circumstances” (par.43) and that “consumers are not in the habit of making assumptions about the origin of goods based on their colour or the colour of their packaging, in the absence of any graphic or word element, because as a rule per se is not, in current commercial practice, used as a means of identification. A colour is not normally inherently capable of distinguishing the good of a particular undertaking” (par.44).
Furthermore, in this case, it was noted that the colors yellow and blue are often used for trademarks distinguishing “fresh fruit” and, therefore, that their use cannot be suitable, in itself, to confer distinctive capacity to the trade mark.
Let’s take into account this judgment to remember the importance of distinctive character as a crucial requirement of the trade mark.
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