A toxic trademark

Every so often, we come across a remarkable trademark in the trademark register. Perfume brands in particular like to come up with distinctive packaging. A good example of this is TOXIC, a shape mark for a perfume bottle designed to look like a gas mask. It’s certainly eye-catching, but whether or not consumers will dare use it is another matter.

You have to be at the top of your game to register a shape mark, as in order to be considered distinctive, a trademark of this kind must significantly differ from anything already on the market. Furthermore, the shape must not rely purely on its attractiveness, which could pose a problem in this case, given the attractive bottle.

Moreover, we all know POISON, a perfume marketed by Dior. It would be interesting to know whether Dior has a problem with this new trademark, which means practically the same thing. If so, could Dior take action against a trademark that is not similar in a visual sense but conceptually very similar? All in all, this is a very interesting trademark application!