Losing a MONOPOLY – bad faith trade mark re-filing in the EU
The General Court of the European Union (‘the GC’) has issued its hotly anticipated decision in Hasbro Inc. v European Union Intellectual Property Office (‘EUIPO’). This case centres on whether one or more EU trade mark (‘EUTM’) registrations owned by Hasbro Inc. (‘Hasbro’) for the trade mark MONOPOLY are invalid because Hasbro’s intentions, when re-filing a mark that was already protected by an EUTM covering the same goods/services, was to undermine the requirement to prove use of an EUTM.