Audi’s numerical trademark registration denied

          Disgruntled with ruling by the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (TRAB) under the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) over registration of the their car model of A3, A4, A5, A6 as trademark, Audi sought legal remedy to reverse the decision before the Beijing No.1 Intermediate People’s Court. The court recently handed Audi another defeat. Trademark office under SAIC and TRAB also rejected Audi’s application of TT and Q7 as trademarks in class 12 and application of  letters and numbers such as S3, S4 as trademarks in the similar commodities by territory extension of PCT.
          The court held that characters such as A4 and A8 is constituted by common letters and numbers without special form of expression, which stand for Audi car model only and made the marks devoid of distinctiveness as a whole, so they can not be granted as trademarks. The trademark office and TRAB held the same reason of the rejection.
(By Yang Qiang)

From: China Intellectual Property News