Are Your Retail Trade Marks At Risk?

It is safe to say that the average consumer will make no distinction between retail services offered by single-brand stores and retail services offered by multi-brand stores (department stores).

Following the decisions of the Court of Justice of the EU ("CJEU") in Apple Store (C 421/13, 2014) and Burlington Arcade, (C-155/18, 2020), the EUIPO is, however, of the opinion that these two types of retail are very distinct. The EUIPO is taking the view that the retail services, offered by single-brand stores, should not be considered as genuine use of "retail services" as registered in Class 35 of the Nice Classification. Trade mark owners operating single-brand stores are therefore no longer able to enforce their current Class 35 registrations as soon as these registrations are older than five years.