On May 2, 2006 LCS ruling clearly separates between two trademark registrability estimation criterion groups, which are absolute and relative requirements raised for trademarks. LSC stated that when judging if certain trademarks actually satisfy absolute requirements, the rights of the third party groups are not considered (the right to a trademark, a company name, an object of copyright, etc.), and the thing which should be taken into consideration is the evaluation if a certain trademark can actually be registered as a trademark in general. In this case, Appeal Section of Lithuanian State Patent Bureau together with First Instance Court announced the registration of three-dimensional trademark (a ceramic bottle for "Riga Balm") invalid because of the absolute trademark invalidity ground – possible misinformation of the society. Lithuanian State Patent Bureau and First Instance Court draw this conclusion grounding that the consumer associates the bottle not with the applicant plaintiff – the producer of bottles, but with the defendant (the producer of balm). LSC indicated that such estimation is not related to the trickery of the trademark itself; therefore it is not a proper cause to announce the registration of the trademark invalid. |