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The Louboutin mark Is the Louboutin red sole mark a valid trade mark or not? At last - the moment all IP aficionados were waiting for has come!  The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has just issued its much-awaited judgment in  Louboutin  C-163/16 , ruling that  a  mark consisting of a colour applied to the sole of a shoe is NOT covered by the prohibition of the registration of shapes .  Such a mark does not consist ‘exclusively of the shape’. The question that the  Rechtbank Den Haag referred to the CJEU was the following: Is the notion of ‘shape’ within the meaning of Article 3(1)(e)(iii) of  [the  2008 Trade Mark Directive , ie the absolute ground for refusal concerning  signs consisting exclusively of "the shape which gives substantial value to the goods" ]   (‘Form’, ‘vorm’ and ‘forme’ in the German, Dutch and French language versions of the Trade Marks Directive respectively) limite...

As this blog  reported  a couple of days ago, following his first  Opinion  in June 2017, last Tuesday Advocate General (AG) Szpunar issued his new  Opinion  in  Louboutin , C-163/16. Since then, the content and value of the Opinion have not been arguably correctly picked by some media, with some  even  summarizing it as follows: “ Can Christian Louboutin Trademark Red Soles? An E.U. Court Says No ”  [there are  so  many reasons why this headline is just wrong …] . All this has led Christian Louboutin to issue a press release, suggesting that some of the reports of the Opinion could be considered … ‘fake news’  [ here ,  here ,  here ] : “ While ordinarily Christian Louboutin does not comment directly on pending matters, we are making an exception in this instance to correct what appears to be misleading reports of the opinion of M. Szpunar, advocate general, which is seen to impact our ...