There were five Canadian trade-mark cases of note in October. Interestingly, in four of them the Federal Court allowed appeals from the Opposition Board and in three of those cases the appeal was allowed on the basis of new evidence allowed to be filed at the appeal stage.

City Optical Holdings Inc. v. The United States Shoe Corporation was an appeal from a decision of the Opposition Board which refused registration of THE INVINCIBLES for use in association with eyeglass lenses and related wares on the basis that it was confusing with the opponent’s mark, INVISIBLES for  ophthalmic (sic) lenses. The Applicant filed further evidence on appeal, as it was entitled to do. The Opponent chose not to contest the appeal. The Court allowed the appeal on the basis of the further evidence since there was no evidence of actual confusion and different channels of trade.

The appeal from the Registrar in Minolta-QMS, Inc. v. Tsai was also allowed, again on the basis of new evidence filed on appeal. Minolta’s opposition to the registration of MAGICOLOR in association with electrical wire, namely shielded, unshielded and insulated electric wire, cable and cord was dismissed by the Opposition Board. Minolta had not filed evidence in chief and the Board ruled that much of the evidence filed in reply by Minolta was not proper reply evidence. On the basis of the new evidence filed on appeal, it was clear that as of the date Minolta filed its opposition the MAGICOLOR mark was not distinctive, Minolta having had previous use.

In Fairweather Ltd. v. Registrar of Trade-marks, the Court, also on the basis of new evidence allowed on appeal, set aside the Registrar’s decision under section 45 expunging Fairweather Ltd.’s mark TARGET APPAREL. Fairweather had acquired the mark following the receivership of another company and the Opposition Board was not satisfied that the mark had been used or that there was a serious intention to use the mark. The new evidence on appeal demonstrated that Fairweather had taken concrete steps, including the development of artwork by employees of a related company. There were also actual sales, although these were subsequent to the issuance of the section 45 Notice.

In Smart & Biggar v. Jarawan the Court allowed the appeal from the Opposition Board’s decision that the Registrant of the mark, AL-RIFAI ROASTERY (MAHMASAT) had demonstrated use in the last three years in accordance with section 45 of the Trade-marks Act. The Court noted that the standard of review was one of reasonableness.  Given the vague and imprecise Affidavit filed by the Registrant, it was not reasonable for the Hearing Officer to have concluded there was use.

Petrillo v. Allmax Nutrition Inc. was a motion for summary judgement. The Court concluded that no genuine issue for trial existed against the personal defendant Mr. Kichuk for the alleged infringement of the ISO-FLEX trade-mark. The Court examined the law regarding the personal liability of directors and officers and the principles governing summary judgement, concluding there was no evidence to support the assertions in the Statement of Claim that Mr. Kichuk incorporated his companies or pursued a course of conduct through the companies intended to infringe the Plaintiff’s trade-mark.

There are two trade-mark cases from the Canadian Courts in September 2006 of interest to readers.

In Cafe’ Do Brasil, S.p.A. v. Walong Marketing Inc., the Federal Court agreed with the applicant, an Italian food products company, and expunged a registered trade-mark owned by the respondent. The respondent’s registered trade-mark, KIMBO, was identical to the trade-mark that the applicant had obtained a registration for in Canada in 1990 and had used in Canada since 1992. In 2003, the applicant filed an application to expand the registration of its KIMBO trade-mark, but was informed that the Canadian Trade-mark Office objected to the registration of its KIMBO trade-mark in relation to the additional wares because it was confusing with a KIMBO trade-mark owned by the respondent. The record disclosed that expungement proceedings had been initiated in 1999 which resulted in the expungement of the applicant’s KIMBO trade-mark. However, the applicant had not received actual notice of the expungement proceedings in 1999. The Court held that the application was properly before it since the applicant met the definition of an “interested person”, having not received actual notice of the expungement proceedings. The Court further held that at the time of the first use of KIMBO by the respondent’s predecessor company in 1995, there was a reasonable likelihood of confusion between the two parties’ trade-marks. As a result, the respondent was not entitled to register its trade-mark and it was therefore invalid and was expunged from the Register.

In Community Credit Union Ltd. v. Registrar of Trade-marks, the Federal Court refused to set aside the Registrar of Trade-marks’ refusal to register the trade-mark COMMUNITY CREDIT UNION. With regards to the “clearly descriptive” ground of opposition, the Court held that it was not unreasonable for the Board not to have considered this ground. The Court further stated that if they were wrong in this regard, it was satisfied that the mark was clearly descriptive of the character of the services to be provided by the applicant in association with its use, and that registration of the mark COMMUNITY CREDIT UNION would remove the word “community” from the vocabulary available to others providing credit union services. With regards to distinctiveness, the Registrar had concluded that the mark was inherently non-distinctive because there were numerous credit unions in Canada that used “Community Credit Union” in their trade-marks or trade names. While a mark may become distinctive in a particular geographical area, the court held that there was considerable evidence before them and before the Registrar that the mark was commonly used within the trade in every region and that circumstances pointed to an absence of distinctiveness.