Trademark law: Abstract room concepts protectable

14 Juli 2014

By judgment of 10.07.2014 (Case C-421/13 - Apple Inc v German Patent and Trade Mark Office), the European Court of Justice decided that a drawing without indications of size or proportion, which depicts the equipment of a sales outlet by means of a set of lines, contours and shapes, can be protected as a trade mark if it is capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one company from those of other companies and if there are other grounds for refusal of registration (Art. 2 and 3 of Directive 2008/95/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 October 2008 to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks).

The full judgment is available here.