Supreme Court of Canada on "Famous Trademarks"

[GeorgeK]

There were a couple of important rulings made today on the issue of famous trademarks. The implications for domain name holders doing business in Canada are very positive.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/business/national/2006/06/02/trademark-supremecourt.html
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060602.wscoc0602/BNStory/National/home

"In a ground-breaking intellectual property decision, the court ruled 8-0 that, while Barbie has achieved a distinctiveness within the doll world, that does not give it the right to prevent very different businesses from using the name."

The rulings can be found at:

http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2006/2006scc22/2006scc22.html
http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2006/2006scc23/2006scc23.html

 

[POLiSH]

The country's top court ruled against toymaker Mattel Inc., which had been appealing a lower court decision that permitted the three-outlet chain of Montreal-area restaurants to keep using Barbie in its name and design.

It's only been going on since 2002, in time everyone can be at peace: lol

 

[darrenl]

Sounds to me like liberal Canada... will this begin to apply to all famous trademarks? Use it because its not distrinctive?