Tue, Oct 17th 2023
Apple will not receive protection for the word mark “Face ID” in Switzerland.
The Federal Administrative Court has confirmed a corresponding decision by the Institute for Intellectual Property. The mark is considered to be purely descriptive and lacks sufficient distinctiveness. It therefore falls within the scope of the public domain.
The U.S. company filed its application for trademark registration with the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IPI) in August 2017. “Face ID” was intended to stand for biometric identification applications. This is according to a ruling by the Federal Administrative Court published on Tuesday.
The institute rejected the application in September 2022. It held that the word mark was directly descriptive for the categories of goods and services mentioned. Therefore, it would not be identified by user circles as a company-related indication of origin.
The Federal Administrative Court supports the view of the IGE. It emphasizes that “face” and “ID” are common terms in English. For average users as well as for security and IT specialists, their combination is associated with identification and facial recognition. Contrary to the appellant’s view, the term would not be mainly associated with Apple.
The judgment is not yet final and can be appealed to the Federal Court. (Judgment B-4839/2022 of 5.10.2023)
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