Gevoegde zaken T-102/11, T-369/12, T-370/12, T-371/12.
Gemeenschapsmerk – Vernietiging van beslissing R 1125/2010-2 van de tweede kamer van beroep van het Bureau voor harmonisatie binnen de interne markt (BHIM) van 1 december 2010 houdende verwerping van het beroep tegen de weigering van de onderzoeker om het woordmerk „IP ZONE” in te schrijven voor diensten van klasse 42.
Het beroep wordt verworpen. Het BHIM heeft terecht geoordeeld dat de aangevraagde woordmerken “IP ZONE,” “EUROPE IP ZONE,” “IP ZONE EUROPE,” en “EUROPEAN IP ZONE” beschrijvend zijn voor de betrokken diensten (online portals voor o.a. algemene transacties met betrekking tot het intellectuele eigendom), gelet op het relevante publiek dat bestaat uit professionals op het gebied van intellectuele eigendom. De aangevraagde merken missen daarom onderscheidend vermogen.
22 It cannot validly be claimed that the services at issue – ‘hosting an on‑line portal for disclosing, selling, buying, licensing and general transactions for intellectual property’ – are not principally intended for professionals in the field of intellectual property, in so far as these are very specific services which refer expressly to the field of intellectual property.
30 As the Board of Appeal correctly found in paragraph 17 of the decision contested in Case T‑102/11, in paragraph 25 of the decisions contested in Cases T‑369/12 and T‑370/12, and in paragraph 26 of the decision contested in Case T‑371/12, the possible meaning of the acronym IP should not be examined in the abstract, but in relation to the services covered by the marks applied for and to the consumers for whom they are intended.
34 Third, with regard to the applicant’s argument that the contested decisions did not state that the marks at issue were descriptive of the services in question – hosting an on‑line portal – but more generally descriptive of a website devoted to intellectual property or a virtual information zone on intellectual property, it must be observed that, in paragraph 22 of the decision contested in Case T‑102/11, in paragraph 28 of the decision contested in Case T‑369/12, and in paragraph 29 of the decisions contested in Cases T‑370/12 and T‑371/12, the Board of Appeal found that the relevant public would perceive the expression ‘IP ZONE’ as being a reference to an ‘area dedicated to intellectual property’. The Court finds that that definition, even if it is not particularly...
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IEPT20140312, GEU, American Express Marketing & Development v BHIM
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