Newsalert - The CJEU declares the genuine use of the "Testarossa" trademark in relation to the iconic Ferrari model, no longer in production.

On 22 October 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) issued an important judgement on the nature and extent of genuine use of trademarks within the meaning of Article 12(1) and Article 13 of Directive 2008/95 to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trademarks. The Directive, applicable to the case at issue, has been replaced by Directive 2015/2436, which sets forth substantially identical provisions on the issues in suit.

Such ruling has been requested in the framework of the Ferrari S.p.A. c. Du case (joined cases C-720/18 and C-721/18) and stemmed from two requests for a preliminary ruling from the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf, before which Ferrari appealed the first instance decision issued by the Regional Court of Düsseldorf that declared the cancellation for lack of genuine use of two of its “Testarossa” trademarks registered for products in class 12 of the Nice Classification.

See an analysis on the topic in the Alert by our IP, TMT and Data Protection Department