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JOOP! strives for more than punctuated success
Posted: 09/10/2009
On 7 September 2006, JOOP! GmBH (“JOOP”) filed an application with the Office of Harmonization for the Internal Market (“OHIM”), the European body responsible for the registration of trade marks across the European Union.
JOOP attempted to register the “!” symbol alone as its trademark. The OHIM examiner rejected the registration on the basis that the public would perceive an exclamation mark as a “gimmick”, and the exclamation mark would not shed any light on the “commercial origin” of goods bearing merely an exclamation mark.
Not satisfied with the decision, JOOP appealed to the Court of First Instance. Recently, that Court of upheld the decision of the OHIM examiner.
The Court held that the exclamation mark alone was not capable of identifying the commercial origin of the goods bearing that mark, without any possibility of confusion to the public.
Simply, JOOP’s reputation in the market was not yet such that the public would unmistakably associate goods bearing an exclamation mark alone as being goods originating from JOOP.
However, all is not lost for JOOP. It is foreseeable that in the future, an exclamation mark alone may be able to become JOOP’s registered trademark. What is clear, however, is that JOOP will need to increase market awareness of its "!" brand to the point where that symbol clearly identifies JOOP.
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