Don't Put All Your Lip Balms In One Basket

After having recently ruled that the shape of Guerlain's "Rouge G" lipstick case could be registered as a trade mark, the General Court has denied registration to EOS's egg-shaped lip balm as a 3D trade mark.

In the Guerlain case, the Court had decided that the norms and customs of the sector cannot be reduced to what is statistically most widespread, but must instead include all the shapes that the consumer is accustomed to see on the market. Cylindrical shapes might be the most common ones, but they are not the only ones, and the fact that a certain sector is characterized by the presence of different shapes does not mean that a new possible shape should be regarded as a mere variation thereof.