EU: A French perfume firm failed in an effort to trademark the smell of "ripe strawberries" yesterday in a legal ruling that represents a setback for industry attempts to gain exclusive rights to market scents.
The European Court of First Instance (ECFI) in Luxembourg rejected an appeal by Laboratoires France Parfum against a decision by the EU trademark agency to reject an application submitted in 1999 to register the smell.
The decision follows previous rulings against attempts by firms to trademark the scent of raspberry, lemon and vanilla, although the court has backed a decision to allow the smell of freshly cut grass to be trademarked by a Dutch company.
In its judgment yesterday the EU court ruled that there was no unique smell for ripe strawberries, citing scientific studies compiled by the research agency European Co-operation in the field of scientific and technical research (COST).
"The mere finding that it was possible to differentiate the varieties by their smell in five of the nine crops analysed in the study is sufficient to show that strawberries do not have just one smell," said the court.
Laboratoires France Parfum had asked the ECFI to overturn a ruling by the EU trademark agency that the smell could not be trademarked. It argued that the smell of ripe strawberries does not vary between different varieties of the fruit, thereby enabling their unique smell to be registered as an EU community trademark.
It hoped to use the trademark to cover a wide range of products such as perfumes, soaps, washing powders and cosmetics.
The company's application for registration of the smell consisted simply of a colour picture of a ripe strawberry and the words "smell of ripe strawberries". It argued that the smell of ripe strawberries is well known to consumers from childhood memories of it.