Ferrero four years later
Four years ago, Ferrero successfully defended its confectionery marks against a FIFA attack. Sadly, the judgment came too late for them to market their confectionery during the 2006 FIFA Soccer World Cup. A reference to a new German decision between the same parties on IPKat will be of great interest to Afro-IP readers. Regular readers of the latter blog will recall the Metcash decision, discussed a short while ago, where FIFA successfully prevented Metcash from marketing confectionery referring to soccer and 2010 (see here http://afro-ip.blogspot.com/2009/10/fifa-v-metcash-judgment.html).
The good news from Germany is that the Bundesgerichthof (their Federal Supreme Court) upheld Ferrero’s trade mark registrations for WM (World Cup in German) and 2010 (no details available yet, but presumably in the confectionery class). As yet, the posting refers only to a press release, but maybe attorneys for Metcash will make sure the decision is available in English to readers of Afro-IP in due course? See IPKat here (http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2009/11/ferrero-v-fifa-in-world-cup-trade-mark.html).
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