Storm in the Monopoly, the famous board game that has endowed our evenings since our childhood. The Hasbro brand is currently facing a major battle and the verdict has just been delivered.
500 million players
The most famous of the board games developed by the Hasbro brand (but actually published in 1935 by the Parker Brothers company under the name Monopoly) still continue to exult, or do ragequit players, sometimes to the point of swinging the board to the other end of the room, (then feeling, a few minutes later, very lonely).
It is difficult to accurately count the number of existing versions as Hasbro has released some, some are even very rare find. Today, the game is marketed in more than 80 countries and published in 43 languages. The number of players is estimated at 500 million people.
Bad faith
More A huge cloud has hung over Hasbro since the company fought a European legal battle against a Croatian competitor, Kreativni Događaji. The latter requested the invalidation of the registered trademark Monopoly, and after the verdict, The Court of Justice of the European Union has invalidated the exclusive use of this mark to designate its board game. How is it possible after so many years?
According to the EUIPO and the Court of Justice of the European Union and the EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Property Office), Hasbro allegedly showed “bad faith” by re-registering the trademark “Monopoly” in 2011. Trademarks are validated by EUIPO. However, can be overridden if their owners do not justify serious use, 5 years after registration.
End of monopoly
According to the court, this re-recording had the simple objective of avoiding Hasbro will have to prove “genuine use” again, this trademark presentation being perfectly identical to the previous registrations. Therefore, this invalidation refers to the products and services of classes 9, 16, 28 and 41, which include games and entertainment. The brand will obviously continue to operate under the name Monopoly , more from now on, other brands will be able to use this term to name their board games.
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