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Intellectual Property Law

: IPKat

Iceland fishing for EU status

By Johanna Gibson, David Pearce, Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon.

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The IPKat, like all self-respecting felines, is passionate about fish. This is why he's so excited to learn that the Icelandic Parliament has voted by a narrow majority to set in motion an application to join the European Union. Iceland's bid must now be approved by the EU, after which Iceland's people will be asked to vote on it in a referendum.

Right: the IPKatfish?

Apart from the fish, Iceland's accession to the European Union would raise to 28 (if no-one else gets there first) the number of countries covered by the Community trade mark and the Community design -- as well as increasing the number of official languages into which the judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Communities and the Court of First Instance may have to be translated. Adds the IPKat, it means another set of dictionaries and lexicons for the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market's library and another jurisdiction in which distinctiveness acquired through use will have to be demonstrated before an inherently non-distinctive sign can gain registrability.

Merpel's quite worried. Iceland, she observes, is only one letter away from an existing EU member state, Ireland. Is this not a dreadful case of close similarity leading to a likelihood of confusion?

Lots of facts about Iceland here

Full post as published by IPKat on July 21, 2009 (boomark / email).