Region: Finland

In our latest round-up, we look at luxury brands avoiding Black Friday discounts, Edible Arrangements filing a trademark lawsuit, a huge counterfeit haul in Paraguay, and much more.

30 November 2018

In our latest round-up, we look at Pakistan stepping up its fight against fakes, the Finnish IP office reminding users about an impending trademark change, IP Australia seeking user input, and much more.

20 November 2018

In the second of our five-part series, trademark counsel from law firms across Europe provide an overview of the performance of their countries’ EU trademark courts over the last two years.

17 August 2018

The Finnish Supreme Administrative Court has requested a preliminary ruling from the European Court of Justice regarding a colour trademark, which had been rejected on the grounds that it did not meet the requirement of graphical representation.

11 January 2018

The World Intellectual Property Organisation Arbitration and Mediation Centre has decided on a dispute between Oy Vallila Interior Ab and Linkz Internet Services which concerned the ‘vallila.com’ domain name. It found that the respondent had not registered or used the domain name in bad faith, instead finding that the complainant had brought the proceedings in bad faith and had attempted reverse domain name hijacking. It therefore rejected the complaint.

01 December 2017

The Finnish Supreme Administrative Court has annulled a decision to refuse registration of the number mark 12 for door handles, stating that since it was not reasonably foreseeable that consumers would associate 12 with the number or price of the door handles, the mark was not devoid of distinctiveness. The decision demonstrates that trademarks consisting of numbers can be registered but will have a weak distinctive character.

20 November 2017

The Finnish Market Court recently ruled that Mjólkursamsalan ehf’s registered word mark SKYR was invalid. The court noted that in some publications the word ‘skyr’ had long been used as a generic word describing the nature of certain Icelandic fermented dairy products. The mark was therefore held to be non-distinctive.

27 September 2017

The Finnish Market Court has ruled that the use of a registered device mark (logo) on the website of a car maintenance and repair business can be considered an infringement of a trademark, as use of a logo (instead of a mere word mark) was considered to be unnecessary. The court found that the use of the plaintiffs’ device marks on the defendant’s website might have caused the public to believe that the companies were economically linked.

15 December 2016

In <i>Verkkokauppa.com v Veneilijänverkkokauppa.com</i> the Supreme Court has quashed two lower-court decisions, ruling in favour of the owner of Finnish trademark Verkkokauppa.com. The action was based on the 2004 registered word trademark covering "retail and e-commerce" in Class 35.

20 April 2016

In <I>Mjólkursamsalan ehf v Arla Oy</I>, the Finnish Market Court has issued a temporary injunction preventing Arla Oy from using the mark ARLA SKYR in relation to "dairy products". Although '<I>Skyr</I>' is an Icelandic cultured dairy product, the court found that the applicants had demonstrated that they had valid registered trademark rights to the word mark SKYR in Class 29.

19 October 2015