EU court backs Amazon in tax ruling
Brussels says it will carefully study whether to appeal to Europe s top court after Amazon won the annulment of a 2017 back-taxes ruling.
Amazon has won a major court case against the European Commission
EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager said Brussels would study carefully Wednesday s EU General Court annulment in favor of Amazon.
The case may still end up before the bloc s highest chamber, the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
In 2017, the EU Commission ordered the US retailer to pay €250 million ($300 million) in back taxes to Luxembourg, despite Luxembourg siding with Amazon.
At that time, Vestager had argued that Amazon had profited from special low tax conditions since 2003 in Luxembourg, home to the US giant s European headquarters.
General Court dismisses charityâs âHeartfulnessâ trademark appeal
05-03-2021
14-12-2017
The foundation petitioned the General Court to annul the decision and order EUIPO to pay costs.
Sahaj Marg argued that it had developed the technique of ‘Heartfulness’ and used the word to designate its goods and services, arguing that the EUIPO board failed to take into account that consumers identified the word with the foundation when it denied the application for lack of distinctiveness. It also claimed that the wordmark was not descriptive, making it eligible for trademarking.
The General Court dismissed all of the foundation’s pleas on March 3, and ordered it to bear its own costs and pay costs incurred by EUIPO.
Bezos non-profit loses trademark case at EU court
25-02-2021
10-03-2016
The Bezos Family Foundation, a non-profit organisation run by the family of Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, has lost its appeal against a trademark invalidation at the EU General Court.
The tenth chamber of the court delivered the judgment yesterday, February 24, affirming an earlier decision by the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and its boards of appeal. In doing so, it upheld the opposition of SNCF Mobilités, France s national state-owned railway company.
The dispute arose in December 2017, after the foundation filed an application for the registration of the word sign ‘Vroom’ as an EU trademark with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO).
Oatly milks vegan trademark success at General Court
21-01-2021
27-03-2018
The Second Chamber of the EU General Court yesterday, January 20, upheld a trademark appeal brought by vegan food brand Oatly, overturning an earlier decision by the European Union Intellection Property Office (EUIPO).
In 2019, Oatly applied to register ‘It’s Like Milk But Made For Humans’ as a trademark in the EU. Oatly wanted the mark to cover a range of foodstuff products in classes 18, 25, 29, 30, and 32.
According to the Swedish company’s website, Oatly uses a patented enzyme technology to mirror nature’s own processes and turn oats into nutritional liquid food. Oatly seeks to promote alternative eating habits as part of the fight against climate change.
19-06-2020
An association of Cypriot Halloumi producers has lost a long-running trademark battle at the EU General Court, which upheld a decision by the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) allowing a rival to trademark a cheese product.
The judgment, handed down yesterday, January 20, was described as a major setback for the Foundation by a lawyer following the case.
Michael Tennant, director at Tennant IP, said: In my opinion, the weight given to the figurative elements were vastly overstated, in that it is a generic picture of cheese, given the co-operation with the dominant word element BBQloumi , would not offer a vast amount of difference on part of the average consumer.