Trade Marks: Prince Ernst August of Hanover & Brunswick etc v OHIM
The challenge by the Prince of Hanover to the decision of the First Board of Appeal upholding the examiner's decision to dismiss the Prince's application to register his family coat of arms as a trade mark is a peach of a case. Unfortunately, the transcript of T-397/09 Prinz von Hannover v OHIM [2011] T-EUECJ 397/09 (25 May 2011) is in French. No English or even Anglophone judges or lawyers seem to have taken part. Before I go into the facts of the case it is worth reading the Wikipedia articles on the House of Hanover and the House of Windsor for some background. It will be seen that the link with Hanover was broken when Queen Victoria acceded to the throne. The royal family changed its name from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor at height of the First World War - just about the time of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. The current head of the House of Hanover is Ernst August V, Prince of Hanover , the third husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco . His Royal Highness...