Trademark protection for dialect terms: The "Grantler" case

According to Duden, the term "Grantler" describes a person who tends to grump, or – to put it mildly – is often not in the best of moods. The Federal Patent Court (BPatG) has rejected registration of the term as a trademark for clothing. The word "Grantler" "conveys an immediately understandable, striking, possibly ironic/witty, but catchy statement that the wearer of the relevant goods is a person with a grumpy disposition," according to the BPatG. "In the clothing sector, it has long been common practice [...] to print T-shirts [...] with Bavarian or other dialect terms, to display this clearly and to highlight the motif in the product description, since the motif is of key importance for the purchasing decision," the court argued. The trademark "therefore must be kept free as a decorative or motif indication, at least for those goods for which the specific motif is an essential criterion in the purchasing decision and is therefore regularly mentioned in the product description."

BPatG of June 7, 2021, Ref.: 29 W (pat) 1/19