In China, using the English letters or combinations of English words for applications of trademark may be widely accepted by companies, but they should consider the descriptiveness of their marks when the applications are submitted to the European offices. Examples might be the refusals of ‘jumbo’, ‘mini’, ‘best’ ’24 hours service’ or ‘slimming & fit’ designating to relevant products. Some cases present that even in England, the native English country, using the English letters as trademarks caused problems which should be interpreted by the judge in particular cases.
　　1. Descriptive marks
　　In 1998, an applicant was submitted to OHIM (the office for registrations of CTMs) for applying a word combination—“Baby-Dry” as a CTM for baby nappies. The OHIM rejected to register such a descriptive mark because the word combination describes the ‘intended purpose’ of the products to ‘keep the baby dry’. When the case was appealed to the ECJ (European Court of Justice), the court took those two provisions together and said the purpose of the prohibition of registration of purely descriptive signs or indications as trademarks is to prevent registration of signs or indications which, because they are no different from the usual way of designating the relevant goods or services or their characteristics, could not fulfill the function of identifying the undertaking that markets them and are thus devoid of the distinctive character needed for that function. The Court made a guideline that the word combination should be taken into assessing steps as following:
　　a). Whether it satisfies the definition of Article 4 of Regulation?
　　b). Whether, from a consumer’s view, its characters “differ from the usual way of designating the class of goods or services in question or one of their essential characteristics”?
　　c). Whether it is a normal way of referring to designating the kind, quality, quantity, etc of the goods, service or its essential characteristics in common parlance?

第 [1] [2] [3] [4] 页 共[5]页