Trademark HOUSE OF BLUES 
by Dr. Maximilian Kinkeldey, Partner of Grünecker, Kinkeldey, Stockmair & Schwanhäusser

With respect to the trademark application for the term HOUSE OF BLUES for audio and video tapes, cassettes, compact discs and LPS, the Federal German Supreme Court decided that the necessity to keep a term freely available to be used for certain manufacturing or sales locations does not have the consequence that the same trademark can be refused protection for goods manufactured or sold in these places under Section 8, Sub-section 2, No. 2 of the German Trademark Act. The danger that a term which has to be kept freely available might be monopolised through the registration of a trademark for similar goods has to be met in infringement proceedings rather than in the application proceedings. The Federal German Supreme Court, as a result, has come to the conclusion that the term HOUSE OF BLUES is registrable for the goods in question if the German Patent and Trademark Office cannot show that there is a current or clearly visible future need for any competitors (possibly music shops specialised in blues music) to use the term HOUSE OF BLUES on the claimed goods in a descriptive manner (Bundesgerichtshof, Decision of March 18, 1999 - 1 ZB 27/96).