The Polish Patent Office in its decision of 10 April 2003 No Sp. 218/01 refused to invalidate the registration of AMBER R-98839 trade mark registered for goods in Class 3 such as bleaching preparations and other substances for laundry use; cleaning, polishing, scouring and abrasive preparations; soaps; perfumery, essential oils, cosmetics, hair lotions; dentifrices and owned by Evyap Sabun,Yag,Gliserin Sanayi Ve Ticaret A.S. from Istambul, Turkey. The request for invalidation was filed by IZIS Kosmetyczno-Lekarska Spółdzielnia Pracy from Warsaw and IZIS decided also to file a complaint against this decision. The Voivodeship Administrative Court in Warsaw in its judgment of 14 October 2004 case file 6 II SA 3571/03 annulled the questioned decision and ruled that it was made in a breach with procedural law. Evyap Sabun,Yag,Gliserin Sanayi Ve Ticaret A.S. filed a cassation complaint.

The Supreme Administrative Court in its judgment of 11 May 2005 case file II GSK 49/05 ruled that there is no doubt that it’s necessary to refer to the inadmissibility of registration of a trade mark as provided Article 8(1) of the TMA with regard to the content of the trade mark itself. Initially, in legal doctrine and then in case-law, started to develop trends to classify to this provision also with the actions/behavior of a person who applied to register the trade mark, that were characterized by the contradiction with the principles of social coexistence, later replaced with the legislation naming such as “complying with the principles of good manners”, fair trading and good faith , so these are subjective elements. There were not, however, views, or judgments, combining this rule with the conduct of the administrative proceedings, because such understanding is simply unacceptable. The SAC repealed the questioned judgment.

Categories: Art. 107 §3 APC | Art. 32 Constitution | Art. 8(1) TMA | likelihood of confusion | Polish Act on Trade marks | Polish Administrative Proceedings Code | Polish Constitution | Polish Supreme Administrative Court | similarity of goods | similarity of signs | trade mark examination | trade mark invalidation.