Singapore’s ‘Champengwine’ trademark application denied on the grounds of bad faith
NEWS
Singapore’s ‘Champengwine’ trademark application denied on the grounds of bad faith
By Pallavi Paul
Singaporean Company, Keep Waddling International Pte. Ltd, had applied for registration of the mark ‘CHAMPENGWINE’ in the year 2017 and has been selling wines originating from Chile under the same mark since the year 2004. ‘Champagne’ in connection to wines is a geographcal tag produced and grown in France. The mark ‘Champengwine’ has been opposed by Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagn and Institut National de l’Origine et de la Qualite who are French associations representing the country’s operators with geographical tag ‘Champagne’ worldwide
NEWS
By Pallavi Paul
The main grounds of opposition include identically similar to an earlier trademark, deceiving public by use of the mark, misrepresentation leading to damages and application made in bad faith. While dealing with the above grounds of opposition the Registrar was only convinced of the ground that the mark ‘Champagne’ is a subject element of bad faith. To justify this, the Registrar stated that the use of the prefix ‘Cham’ in the applied mark is an reference to the use of the known method of production used in France to produce wines and because of the similarity of the chosen prefix to the mark ‘Champagne’, the mark amounts to bad faith. The Opponents thereby succeed the Opposition against the mark ‘Champengwine’
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