Dr Schwab in WTR Daily on the trademark ruling on “rarity value”.

Writing in the online specialist newspaper World Trademark Review Daily on 30 October 2013, BOEHMERT & BOEHMERT partner and trademark expert Dr Florian Schwab reported on the recent decision by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) (C-597/12 P Isdin SA ./. HABM) from 17 October 2013.. The decision concerned a very rare case in which a trademark decision of the European Court was reversed. The case involved opposition proceedings against the word mark ZEBINIX, based on the earlier community mark ZEBEXIR for pharmaceuticals. Notable in the decision was the fact that the European Court found a risk of confusion contrary to the two first instance decisions. However, the ECJ didn’t have to decide on this point in the proceedings against the decision of the European Court. The reversal of the first instance decision was based solely on the formal aspect of insufficient regard for the risk of confusion for the individual goods covered by the community mark. The entire article can be seen here.