Trademarks
Squaring the circle with an 'R' in it
Ross Denton
That handy 'R' can now legally denote a trademark registered anywhere in the EC. This seems to alter Britain's 1938 Trade Marks Act.
In the recent Pall Corp V Dahlhausen case (Case 238/89), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) struck down a provision restricting the use of the "R" symbol in a circle, and again attempted to strike a balance in the unending struggle between free movement of goods and protection of intellectual property.
The case, decided in December 1990, concerned a German rule prohibiting the...