Harmonisation in the Internal Market v Wm Wrigley Jr Company ( DOUB... [2003] Case C-191/01 P

“Doublemint” simply indicated a doubling of mint flavour

• The two individual words themselves were descriptive

• And word as a whole was no different from sum of its parts

  • I.e. as only difference was that space between words had been subtracted

Thus was descriptive of goods characteristics

Mark is excluded if at least one of its possible meanings is descriptive of goods, even if some of its other possible meanings are not descriptive

Thus fact that there is ambiguity as to nature of mint involved (peppermint, spearmint) is irrelevant.

Trade mark may be refused even if mark is not actually descriptive of goods at time of application

• Provided that it could be used for descriptive purposes