On July 1, the 12th Federal Court of Rio de Janeiro issued a ruling in which it determined that the expression \u201ccat’s tongue\u201d can be used by any entity to describe chocolates with an oblong, flat shape. The decision was handed down in response to a lawsuit filed by Allshow Empreendimentos e Participa\u00e7\u00f5es Ltda, the parent company of Cocoa Show, against Nibs Participa\u00e7\u00f5es Ltda, which belongs to the Kopenhagen group, and the National Institute of Intellectual Property (INPI). The dispute began when Cacau Show intended to launch the product \u201cPanettone Miau\u201d, describing it as \u201cClassic Panettone with milk chocolate in the shape of a cat’s tongue\u201d.<\/p>\n
The ruling emphasized that the expression \u201ccat’s tongue\u201d is widely recognized internationally to describe elongated chocolates and should not be used exclusively by Nibs. The magistrate responsible for the case also noted that Kopenhagen had failed to demonstrate the distinctiveness of the trademark when registered with the INPI. Cocoa Show argued that the term was introduced in 1892, derived from a German term used by foreign manufacturers.<\/p>\n
For its part, Nibs Participa\u00e7\u00f5es S.A. argued that the expression \u201cl\u00edngua de gato\u201d was not in generic use in Brazil and that it had held exclusive use since 1940. They also claimed that Cacau Show was unduly trying to benefit from the trademark in order to associate its products with those of Kopenhagen.<\/p>\n
The judge in charge of the trial concluded that there was insufficient evidence of acquired distinctiveness for Nibs’ \u201cL\u00cdNGUA DE GATO\u201d trademark and accepted Cocoa Show’s position that the term is in common use and not exclusive. Therefore, it ordered the annulment of the registration of the \u201cL\u00cdNGUA DE GATO\u201d trademark related to chocolates, based on Art. 124, VI of the Industrial Property Law (Art. 124. The following are not registrable as trademarks: VI – a sign of a generic, necessary, common, vulgar or simply descriptive nature, when it is related to the product or service to be distinguished, or one that is commonly used to designate a characteristic of the product or service, in terms of nature, nationality, weight, value, quality and time of production or provision of the service, unless it is sufficiently distinctive).<\/p>\n
Font: Araripe<\/p>\n
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On July 1, the 12th Federal Court of Rio de Janeiro issued a ruling in which it determined that the expression \u201ccat’s tongue\u201d can be used by any entity to describe chocolates with an oblong, flat shape. The decision was handed down in response to a lawsuit filed by Allshow Empreendimentos e Participa\u00e7\u00f5es Ltda, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5529,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[176],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trademark"],"yoast_head":"\n