On 8 June 2022, The General Court of the European Union dismisses the actions brought by Apple Inc. against the decisions of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) to revoke the tech giant's trademark registration for the word "THINK DIFFERENT" in the EU.
The General Court's decisions follows applications by Swatch in 2016 to revoke Apple’s registration for the trademark "THINK DIFFERENT" on the grounds that the latter had not put the disputed mark to genuine use for an uninterrupted period of five years immediately preceding the revocation applications. Apple had originally sued the Swiss watchmaker over its “Tick Different” slogan. claiming that the latter's slogan infringed upon on Apple’s “Think Different” trademark.
On 24 August 2018, the Cancellation Division of EUIPO accepted Swatch’s revocation applications and Apple’s "Think Different" trademark registration was duly revoked. Unhappy with the revocation, Apple appealed against the decisions of the Cancellation Division which was subsequently rejected by the Board of Appeal. Apple appealed again In January 2021, bringing three actions before the General Court.
Unfortunately for Apple, the General Court agreed with the EUIPO that Apple had failed to prove that its trademarks “had been put to genuine use for the goods concerned during the period from 14 October 2011 to 13 October 2016”.
The General Court’s decision means that any businesses in the EU may now use the slogan on their own products.
It should be noted that in many jurisdictions, the non-use of a trademark is a ground for revocation (e.g. in Malaysia, a trademark registration can be revoked if it's not use in good faith for a continuous period of 3 years). And in certain countries (e.g. USA, the Philippines), trademark owners will have to submit evidence of actual use of their trademarks in order to keep their trademark registrations alive.