Canadian Trademark Blog

Maintained by Clark Wilson LLP

Establishing a Trademark’s Distinctiveness: Recent Case Law

By In Case Law, Protection & Enforcement, Registration

In Cross-Canada Auto Body Supply (Windsor) Limited v. Hyundai Motor America, the Applicant (the reseller of automotive parts and accessories and the Defendant in an ongoing trademark action brought by the Respondent) sought to expunge five of the Respondent’s trademark registrations: HD Design, HD & HYUNDAI Design, HMC Design, HYUNDAI and SONATA. In 1985 the Respondent’s parent company had assigned three of the marks to the Respondent’s predecessor, which in turn assigned the marks to the Respondents, in 1996, but the assignment was only registered in August 2004. The other two marks were assigned to the Respondent in September 2004.

The Applicant argued that the marks were not distinctive of the Respondent, the relevant date for determining distinctiveness in this case being the date the expungement action was commenced, because the the consuming public was not advised during the 1985 -2004 period of the change in ownership.

The Court noted that distinctiveness is the cardinal requirement of a trademark and it is a question of fact whether a clear message has been given to the public that the wares associated with the mark are those of the trademark owner and not those of another party. Relying on survey evidence, the Court concluded that the purchasing public was not confused about the source of the wares and always understood the Respondent to be the source of the vehicles, even though they were sold through dealers.

Moreover, since 1985 the Respondent and its predecessor, although they had not officially registered the assignment, had built up goodwill through extensive advertising.

The Court distinguished the Respondent’s situation from the earlier cases (Wilkinson Sword (Canada) Ltd. v. Juda and Breck’s Sporting Goods Co. v. Magder ) where a transfer of marks by a foreign parent company to its Canadian subsidiary and sales in Canada by a third party of wares purchased from the parent company resulted in a loss of distinctiveness. In the earlier cases there was no evidence that the source of the goods had become identified with the Canadian subsidiary. In this case, however, the Court was convinced by the expert evidence that the consuming public identified the source of the goods as the Canadian subsidiary.

There was delay in the registration of the assignment, but no reliable evidence of any public confusion that the source of the goods was other than the Respondent.

The Court was, however, convinced that one of the marks had been abandoned, not having been used in Canada for a long time and there being no justifiable excuse for non-use. The other four marks had not been abandoned and thus the Respondent was successful and awarded costs.

CAPTAIN CANUCK Trademarked and Riding the Skytrain

By In Branding

A recent story in the Vancouver Sun explains that the most recent manifestation of the comic book hero, Captain Canuck, is a Surrey British Columbia RCMP officer named David Semple.  Captain Canuck, a complicated character that has appeared in at least two other manifestations since his original introduction in 1975, is the creation of Richard Comely of Cambridge, Ontario.

For anyone else who thinks it is a clever idea, Mr. Comely has already registered CAPTAIN CANUCK as a trademark, has registered the domain name captaincanuck.com and has optioned the film rights.

London Olympic Brand Under Fire

By In Branding, Famous Marks

We recently reported on concerns that the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic Games has regarding ambush marketing.  Ambush marketing occurs when persons who are not properly licensed, market their wares and services in a manner which suggests a connection with the Games, often resulting in trade-mark infringement of protected Olympic marks.

Now it appears the that London Organizing Committee for the 2012 Olympic Games may face the opposite problem. The official emblem for the 2012 Olympics, which is a coloured jagged design based on the date 2012, was unveiled on Monday. However, animated footage promoting the brand launch had to be quickly removed from the organizers’ website amid fears it could trigger epileptic fits. The particular footage showed a diver diving into a pool which had a multi-colour ripple effect. The emblem itself, which cost £400,000, is also attracting the wrong kind of attention. Only two days after its launch, nearly 50,000 people had signed an on-line petition to have the logo scrapped, describing it as “ridiculous” and “an embarrassment to London”. The UK Daily Mail newspaper called it “the work of a painting chimp”.

There was controversy when the symbol for the Vancouver Games was first introduced, but that was mild in comparision.

DIRT SHIRT Airs Dirty Laundry

By In Case Law, Trademark Oppositions

In Coastal Culture Inc. v. Wood Wheeler Inc., Coastal appealed a decision of the Registrar rejecting its opposition to the registration of the trademark DIRT SHIRT by Wheeler.  Wheeler applied to register the trademark DIRT SHIRT based upon use in association with its wares and services since May 1997.  Coastal opposed on the basis that Wheeler’s alleged use of the DIRT SHIRT mark was based on prior use of the marks P.E.I. DIRT SHIRT and THE ORIGINAL P.E.I. DIRT SHIRT.Coastal submitted that Wheeler should not be able to remove components of its trade-mark in order to rely on the date of claimed first use.  Coastal further submitted that the words “THE ORIGINAL P.E.I.” and “P.E.I.” formed the first part of the trademarks and were a dominant part of those marks.  Wheeler submitted that the DIRT SHIRT mark was the dominant feature on its wares, in spite of the addition of the words “P.E.I.” and “THE ORIGINAL” and submitted that this minor deviation did not constitute non-use of the mark, and should not disentitle it to registration. 

The Federal Court agreed with Coastal, granted the appeal and refused Wheeler’s application to register the trade-mark DIRT SHIRT.  Although the Federal Court accepted that the words THE ORIGINAL may be a minor variation of the alleged mark, it held that there was no evidence that Wheeler ever sold wares with the DIRT SHIRT mark, absent P.E.I.  The Federal Court concluded that the word P.E.I. had always been an element of the alleged mark, and thus the use of the trade-mark DIRT SHIRT, as a standalone mark, was not established.

Rare Look Into The World Of Domainers

By In Domain Name Disputes

A recent CNN article shines a spotlight on the rarely seen world of top professional domainers, and the tactics they’ve created to capture their sizable portions of cyberspace. The story includes details on the workings of Cameroon’s .cm country code domain, so valuable because of its resemblance to the .com top level domain. Interesting to note that several of the domainers profiled in this article live here in Vancouver or other parts of British Columbia.

Recent Trademark Court Decisions

By In Case Law, Protection & Enforcement

There were three recent trademark decisions from the Canadian courts that readers may find of interest:

Expungement Allowed – In Candrug Health Solutions Inc. v. Thorkelson, Candrug and Pharmawest commenced identical applications and sought expungement of the respondent’s trade-marks in Federal Court. The proceedings were consolidated and Candrug discontinued its application. Therefore, Pharmawest was the sole applicant.

The respondent had applied and been issued registration in May 2003 for the trade-marks CANADA DRUGS and CANADADRUGS.COM. The respondent had disclaimed the exclusive right to use the words “Canada” and “Drugs” apart from the trade-marks. The Federal Court agreed with the applicant and expunged the trade-marks CANADA DRUGS and CANADADRUGS.COM on the basis that they were both clearly descriptive and deceptively misdescriptive under section 12(1)(b) of the Act. The respondent was unable to discharge his onus under section 12(2) to show the marks had acquired distinctiveness as of the date the application was filed. Therefore, the marks were not registrable and were ordered expunged.

Damages Reduced on Appeal – In 2703203 Manitoba Inc. v. Parks, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal allowed an appeal in part and reduced the quantum of damages for copyright infringement, passing-off and interference with contractual relations awarded by the trial judge. The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge’s finding that the appellants infringed the respondent’s copyright in the publication, Coffee News, by producing and distributing the publication, Flying Cow, in the form they did.

Witnesses at trial testified that the first several issues of the Flying Cow were published by the same printer as Coffee News and were identical in every respect including design, format, and quality and colour of the paper. Only the editorial content and the mast-head were different. The Court of Appeal also paid considerable deference to the trial judge’s advantage of seeing and hearing the witnesses and upheld the trial judge’s conclusion that the respondent was entitled to damages from the appellants for passing-off.

Referring specifically to the testimony of several witnesses, the trial judge concluded that the appellants had devised a strategy of lies and deceit in producing Flying Cow as practically identical to Coffee News, with the objective being to cause confusion so that advertisers, distributors and readers may be persuaded that the two publications were sister editions rather than competitors.

The Court of Appeal did, however, take issue with the trial judge’s calculation of damages as there was limited explanation or justification of how the amounts were arrived at. The Court of Appeal reviewed each amount and reduced the trial judge’s order of general damages from $139,000 to $70,500 and punitive damages from $100,000 to $40,000.

Challenging Official Marks – In See You In? Canadian Athletes Fund Corporation v. Canadian Olympic Committee the Applicant sought judicial review of the Registrar’s decision to grant the COC two official marks, SEE YOU IN BEIJING and SEE YOU IN VANCOUVER. The Applicant was incorporated in 1997 to raise money for Canadian athletes and had used marks such as SEE YOU IN ATHENS in the past and had applied to register the two marks at issue. The Federal Court agreed with the Registrar that the COC was a public authority since there was a significant degree of public control over it’s ongoing activities and the organization existed for the public benefit.

However, the Federal Court also concluded that a mere statement by the public authority that it had adopted and used a mark was not sufficient to prove that such adoption and use had actually occurred. A negative inference could be drawn from a failure to provide details regarding alleged adoption and use. Moreover, any such evidence must show an element of public display. Since the COC had not established adoption and use at the relevant time, the Registrar’s decision to publish notice of the adoption and use by COC of the marks as official marks was quashed. We understand that the COC is considering an appeal of this decision.

.CA Domain Hits 20 Year Milestone

By In Domain Name Disputes

20 years ago today, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) delegated the .CA domain to John Demco, then of the University of British Columbia (UBC) Computer Sciences Department. The Vancouver Sun reports that, on May 14, 1987, the commercialization of the Web wasn’t on Demco’s or anyone else’s radar – in fact the Web as we know it wasn’t even in existence. Demco operated the .CA domain for 13 years on a volunteer basis, charging no fees for .CA domain registrations.

Today, the .CA domain is the 13th most popular country code domain in the world, with over 837,000 registrations, Demco is a director of one of the largest .CA Registrars and the Canadian Internet Registration Authority has responsibility for the .CA Domain, which it took over from UBC in 2000.