LEGAL CONDITIONS FOR THE PROTECTION OF THREE DIMENSIONAL SIGNS IN TRADEMARK LAW

Abstract

The need to define three-dimensional trademarks and determine the conditions for their registration has arisen as a consequence of increasingly rapid technological development. The changes in the market and the changes in behaviour of economic entities have resulted in the use of signs for marking goods that differ significantly from the traditional trademarks. The concept of protection of a three-dimensional shape is relatively new and it is necessary to clearly define the conditions for its protection as a trademark. What causes a problem is the fact that the mark, in this case, represents the product itself, which implies that such signs of this sort lack distinctiveness, and it is not clear what is protected by that mark. The analysis of the afore-mentioned cases from practice, presented by the author, aims to show the differences in opinions of the courts regarding the criteria by which it will be assessed whether the condition of distinctiveness is satisfied in a specific case or not. The main reason for the lack of reliable criteria is the hasty regulation of unconventional signs and the lack of the harmonized, clear rules both at the level of the European Union and at the global level. The author considers it necessary for the World Trade Organization or the World Intellectual Property Organization to offer guidelines within which an adequate protection of unconventional signs will be provided at the national level in order to eliminate the state of legal uncertainty that may arise when applying for protection of threedimensional signs.

Keywords

• three-dimensional sign
• unconventional sign
• trademark law
• intellectual property law