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German Supreme Court Denies Trademark Protection for "Soccer World Championship 2006"
In a trademark cancellation proceeding, the German Supreme Court for Civil Matters today denied trademark protection to the term “Soccer World Championship 2006” which the World Soccer Association FIFA, organizer of the world championship, had registered for 850 different groups of products and services. Earlier this year, the FIFA had enjoined candy manufacturer Ferrero from including pictures of the German soccer team under the heading “Soccer World Championship 2006” in their products, claiming trademark infringement. Ferrero responded with this trademark cancellation proceeding, claiming that the term lacks any distinctiveness even in the abstract (German Trademark Act § 3). Lack of distinctiveness in the abstract means that there is no conceivable product for which the term could serve as a source identifier; it is an absolute bar to trademark registration and cannot be overcome by a showing of secondary meaning. The Court held that the term could be distinctive for certain products (in other words where the term would be arbitrary), but that it was not distinctive with regard to the soccer related products offered by the FIFA and its main sponsors. In other words, it did not lack distinctiveness in the abstract, but only in the concrete (German Trademark Act § 8). Lack of distinctiveness in the concrete can be overcome by a showing that the term has “established itself in the relevant consumer circles” (the German parallel to secondary meaning). However, the FIFA failed to show that a relevant part of the consumers regard the term as pointing to the FIFA.
Posted by Roland Witzel at April 27, 2006 9:43 PM in Current Events
