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The importance of the relevant audience in unconventional trademarks. The case of Magnetec GmbH's blue color

Thursday, 20 of October of 2022

Unconventional trademarks are more and more in our everyday life, but their access to registration is very complicated. Magnetec GmbH applied in 2019 for a color mark before the EUIPO (light blue color: RAL 5012), in class 6 and 17. The EUIPO examiner rejected the application on the basis of Art. 7(1)(b) EUTMR. Upon appeal and limitation of the goods applied for, the Fourth Board of Appeal of the EUIPO rejected the limitation as inadmissible, and found that the color would not have any distinctive character for the claimed goods. The General Court, for its part, has determined in a judgment of October 5 of this year, the annulment of the decision of the Fourth Board of Appeal of the EUIPO, motivated by the lack of definition by the Board of the relevant public, which was limited to say that the class 6 goods were of interest to a wider public but without indicating in a clear and unequivocal manner the public to which it referred. Nor did it define it for class 9 products, therefore, it only defined the relevant public in relation to magnetic cores, thereby incurring a breach of its obligation to state reasons under Article 94.1 of the EUTR.

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