The Intellectual Property Office of Great Britain refused to grant legal protection to 6 trademarks applied for registration by Jaguar Land Rover. The brands that the company wanted to register consisted of 3D models in the form of the shapes of cars of series 1, 2, etc. The Land Rover company has applied for registration of trademarks for a rather wide list of goods 9, 12, 14, 28 and services of 37 classes of the MKTP. In particular, the company wanted to obtain legal protection for toys, jewelry and electrical goods.
However, the UK Intellectual Property Office has decided to refuse to register these trademarks. This decision was made by the Office as a result of two objections against registration submitted by a competing company. The objections were based on the arguments that the trademarks submitted for registration are not distinctive and cannot be represented graphically.
It is worth noting that the expert objected to these applications during the examination based on the same grounds. However, Land Rover was able to present evidence that the marks do have distinctive characteristics. This in turn convinced the expert, and as a result the applications were published.
The British Intellectual Property Office justified the refusal to register trademarks as follows: the marks do differ in shape from sports cars and hatchbacks, but these marks still do not have significant differences from the shapes used in the passenger car sector, including the 4×4 sector.
Source: www.worldipreview.com