European Community - Distinctive character of "suchen.de"
The Tribunal of First Instance of the European Communities has considered that the tradeamark "suchen.de" ("Suchen" meaning to search in German) is devoid of any distinctive character.
The mark, composed of the German verb "suchen" (that mean “to search”) and of the German national extension of the first level domain name "de", lacks of any distinctive character.
According to the Court the relevant public, i.e. the German consumer will perceive the combination of the generic terms "suchen" and ".de" as an indication to applicant's web site, but the consumer will not perceive it as a trademark that is indicating the origin of the goods and services offered and rendered under the sign.
The Court states that the sign will rather be perceived as indicating either that the goods and services as applied for enable to proceed with a search on the Internet in German language, or that it is possible to find these goods and services through a search on the Internet in German language (para. 37, 38 ).



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