COLLECTIVE TRADEMARKS GENERICIDE T he collective trademark was
established by the Paris Convention for the Protection
of several entities can use a mark Industrial
Property of March 20, 1883, which says a group of
jointly. Under the current Polish legislation, article 136 of the Law on Industrial Property of June 30, 2000 provides that any legal entity representing the interests of several parties may be granted the rights to a collective trademark; it can be used by that organisation and the parties it
represents. Although
a collective trademark may be used by several entities, the right is granted in the name of one specific organisation. Aſter World War II, Poland had a centrally
planned socialist economy, in which the majority of industry was state-owned and the companies from one sector were grouped together in so-called branch associations. Tese associations were responsible for managing a given branch of industry. All companies in one branch, regardless of where
they were based in Poland, used the same trademark and the same company name for their products. Tey distinguished themselves only by
adding the name of the town or city where they were based. Te trademarks used by the companies grouped within one branch association were collective, and the owner of the rights was the branch association. In 1990, Poland began transforming into
a free-market economy. As a result, branch associations were split and the companies started to become private businesses. Te companies became independent and competed against each other. Although most of the privatised companies retained their names, the ownership of the trademark rights became a hot issue, as the marks were registered in the name of organisations that had ceased to exist. Te trademarks had been used for many
years by all members of the branch associations, and had obtained substantial financial value and a good reputation. Consequently, each company still wanted to take advantage of the reputation of the mark representing its former association.
Te disputes over trademark ownership
were solved in various ways. Te protection of some collective marks came to an end due to a lack of renewal, while some companies filed separate applications in their own names for trademarks identical to the collective marks but with additional geographical terms. Tere was also a group of companies that
established new organisations to represent their interests. Consequently,
the rights to
collective marks were transferred to these organisations through the relevant assignment agreements. However, it led to many conflicts between the parties and generated contradictions in the doctrine and the case law of the Polish Patent Office (PPO).
Case studies One of the issues that was clarified by the Supreme Administrative Court of Poland was whether the companies associated with an organisation had a legal interest to try to cancel an individual right obtained by the organisation itself. Te case concerned an organisation that
registered the collective
trademark ‘Pollena’. Te organisation filed the application in
its own name and subsequently obtained a registration for the individual word-figurative trademark ‘Pollena’ in a stylised form. A request to cancel the mark was filed at the PPO by the companies that were associated with the organisation and which had the right to collectively use the word mark ‘Pollena’.
www.worldipreview.com
World Intellectual Property Review May/June 2015
57
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Shutterstock.com
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