From the Man of Steel to Polish pretzels, perfume to cigarette packaging, here’s a collection of trade mark related news stories that have caught our eye in the last week.

• First up, it’s Superman and a case from Australia in which an application to register “superman workout” was held to be in bad faith despite there being an absence of deceptive similarity between the two registered marks.

• Back in November last year IPcopy noted that sausages from Newmarket in Suffolk had been awarded Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status from the European Commission. The sausages have now been joined in PGI status by  Cracovian “obwarzanek” pretzels.  PGI status means that only products actually originating in the specific town, region or country in question may be identified as such.

• An attempt by Chanel to register one of their fragrances as “Jersey” has failed after an objection by the island’s government. A search of the UK IPO’s online trade mark searching service reveals 401 entries for Chanel  including this opposed mark for Jersey and this published mark for Jersey Chanel.

• Former basketball player Michael Jordan is going through a naming rights issue in China. IPcopy has previously written about Trade Mark Squatters in China and and has an Action Checklist for marks registered by third parties in China.

• Ireland is considering making tobacco companies use  plain cigarette packaging. Something similar has already happened in Australia as noted in this earlier IPcopy article from guest contributor Annette Freeman.

• And finally, Christian Louboutin has filed further suits recently to protect its red-sole trade mark. If this sounds like déjà vu then that’s because this isn’t the first time the trade mark has resulted in court action.

Mark Richardson 6 June 2013