Everyone knows the Rubik’s cube even if only a few have solved it.
The cube has a series of colored squares and has the characteristic of being divided into grids that rotate so as to allow the position of the various colors on the different faces of the cube.
The rotation system is an important technical aspect of the cube as it is thanks to it that the game can work. It is also known that you can not register as a trademark a shape that has technical characteristics, as the technical functions must be protected filing a patent and not a trademark applicatio.
On this basis the Simba Toys GmbH requested the OHIM the cancellation of the trademark three-dimensional Rubik’s cube arguing that the cube has technical characteristics and as such could not be registered as a trademark.
The Court, by decision of 11.25.2014, in case T-450/09, however, rejected the request, confirming the absolute validity of the trademark in question.
The Court observes that the characteristics of the mark are, on the one hand, the cube itself and, secondly, the grid structure visible on each of its faces. However, the thick black lines that are part of the structure and that appear on the faces of the cube drawing a grid inside them make no allusion to a rotation capacity of the elements of the cube and thus do not fulfill any technical function.
The ability to rotate the vertical and horizontal bands of the Rubik’s cube is not derived nor by black lines or by grid structure but by a mechanism inside the cube.
For this reasons registration of the mark can not be denied. The trademark registration does not prevent others from making a product with rotating elements but only to reproduce the same form that is typical of the Rubik’s cube and that makes it recognizable at a glance.