{"id":13045,"date":"2026-05-19T09:15:47","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T07:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogip.garrigues.com\/?p=13045"},"modified":"2026-05-19T09:26:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T07:26:07","slug":"use-it-or-lose-it-madrid-provincial-appellate-court-confirms-the-partial-revocation-of-the-spanish-olympic-committees-trademarks-for-non-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogip.garrigues.com\/en\/intellectual-property\/use-it-or-lose-it-madrid-provincial-appellate-court-confirms-the-partial-revocation-of-the-spanish-olympic-committees-trademarks-for-non-use","title":{"rendered":"Use it or lose it: Madrid Provincial Appellate Court confirms the partial revocation of the Spanish Olympic Committee\u2019s trademarks for non-use"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"post-content\">\n<p><strong>The Madrid Court confirms the partial revocation of several trademarks of the Spanish Olympic Committee due to non-use. The judgment underscores that neither reputation nor sector-specific protection can replace genuine use: without actual commercial use a\u00a0 trademark is lost.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Panel 32 of the Madrid Provincial Appellate Court has confirmed, through six judgments dated October 29 and November 5, the partial revocation on the grounds of non use of several trademarks held by the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE), including &#8220;Comit\u00e9 Ol\u00edmpico Espa\u00f1ol Espa\u00f1a&#8221;, &#8220;Juegos Ol\u00edmpicos&#8221; and \u201cOlimpiada\u201d. The decision dismisses the COE\u2019s appeals against the prior decisions by the Spanish Patents and Trademarks Office (OEPM) and sends a clear message: in trademark law not even the Olympic name gets special treatment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The origin of the conflict<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The conflict arose following the application that was filed for the mark \u201cOlimpo\u201d at the OEPM by the company Miguel Bellido, S.A., for goods in class 33. The COE opposed the application based on its similar trademarks. Miguel Bellido did not simply respond to the opposition; instead, it launched a counterattack, submitting applications for revocation due to non-use of several of the COE\u2019s trademarks. The OEPM partially upheld those applications and revoked the trademarks for all the goods and services except for &#8220;education, training and sporting activities&#8221; (class 41), which were the only ones for which genuine use was found to have been established. Following the COE\u2019s appeal, the court has confirmed the administrative decisions in full, therefore upholding the revocation of the trademarks affected.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Key aspects of the judgment<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Court\u2019s decisions address four key issues in resolving the applications for revocation of the COE\u2019s trademarks, which are, in any event, applicable to other similar proceedings:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Broad standing to file the revocation application.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The COE held that Miguel Bellido lacked legitimate interest since it had already secured the registration of its trademark &#8220;Olimpo&#8221; despite the COE\u2019s opposition. The court rejected this argument and held that the concept &#8220;injured party&#8221; under article 58.1 of the Trademarks Law must be interpreted broadly, since revocation for non-use serves not only a private interest but also a public interest in ensuring the integrity of the register. Moreover, standing is not limited to the applicant\u2019s identical or similar goods and can only be ruled out in certain exceptional cases of bad faith or abuse of the law, which must be interpreted restrictively. This approach is consistent with European Union Law (UE Directive 2015\/2436 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2015), in which the concept \u201cinjured party\u201d does not exist, and instead focuses on the capacity to sue, limiting the exclusion of standing to the specific cases identified.<\/p>\n<p>The court also adds that the fact that the COE\u2019s opposition was unsuccessful and the trademark \u201cOlimpo\u201d was finally registered does not retroactively deprive the applicant of the standing it had at the time the revocation application was filed, holding that the principle of <em>perpetuatio legitimationis<\/em> is applicable, especially given that the revocation application was filed even before the mark was granted.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Insufficient proof of use.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The judgment looked at the proof of use submitted and confirmed that the publications on the COE\u2019s website, the Google search results and the screenshots on the history of the Olympics did not evidence genuine use of the trademarks affected in the ordinary course of business. The Trademarks Law requires that the use made of a mark must be genuine and relate specifically to the goods and services registered, not merely informational in nature.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The Sport Law does not exempt from the obligation to use the mark.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The court clearly identifies two spheres of protection: if the COE chooses to register its signs as a trademark, it must comply with the obligations of the trademark system. Sport legislation offers its own mechanisms to protect such signs such as article 5.1.f) of the Trademarks Law, which permits the refusal of third-party registration, but does not allow for supplementary trademark protection unless the applicable requirements for maintaining registration are met.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The pandemic does not justify non-use.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The judgment underscores that although it is a contradictory argument when trying to evidence the use of the trademark, the Covid-19 lockdown that the COE relies on, lasted only a few months, not five years, and therefore does not justify non-compliance with the use requirement under trademark law. It goes on to say that the reasons that justify non-use must be interpreted restrictively and cannot be used as a pretext for prolonged inactivity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What practical lesson can be drawn from this judgment?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The message is clear and applies to all trademark owners, not just to the COE. Registering a trademark for a wide variety of goods and services without putting it to genuine use is a risky strategy: any third party can apply for revocation. The burden of proof then falls on the trademark owner and neither the trademark\u2019s reputation, nor protection under an industry-specific law, nor extraordinary circumstances such as a pandemic remove the obligation of real use in the market.<\/p>\n<p>In this regard, the recommendation for public bodies, federations, committees, as well as for any other private entities that register their marks as a defense mechanism is clear: regularly review trademark portfolios, keep records of genuine use for each class registered and if the trademark is not used on certain goods and services, consider giving up the registration before a third party forces revocation. No use, no rights.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.garrigues.com\/en_GB\/team\/marta-gonzalez-aleixandre\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Marta Gonz\u00e1lez Aleixandre\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.garrigues.com\/en_GB\/services\/intellectual-property\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Intellectual Property Department<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Madrid Court confirms the partial revocation of several trademarks of the Spanish Olympic Committee due to non-use. The judgment underscores that neither reputation nor sector-specific protection can replace genuine use: without actual commercial use a\u00a0 trademark is lost. Panel 32 of the Madrid Provincial Appellate Court has confirmed, through six judgments dated October 29 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":13043,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,96],"tags":[733],"coauthors":[667],"class_list":["post-13045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-intellectual-property","category-trademarks","tag-registered-trademark"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogip.garrigues.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogip.garrigues.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogip.garrigues.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogip.garrigues.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogip.garrigues.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13045"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogip.garrigues.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13050,"href":"https:\/\/blogip.garrigues.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13045\/revisions\/13050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogip.garrigues.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogip.garrigues.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogip.garrigues.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogip.garrigues.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13045"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogip.garrigues.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=13045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}