The Rolling Stones get Satisfaction from the courts of Indonesia!

Musidor BV is one of the Rollings Stone’s companies which owns trademark rights in their famous Lips and Tongue logo (left).  This was supposed to be adapted from Mick Jagger's own mouth.  

An Indonesian Tony Budiman register a very similar Lips and Tongue logo with the word STONES and another with STONES & CO, both in class 25 for clothing. Musidor sued to cancel the marks and won, with the Jakarta Commercial Court ordering the Trademarks Office (TMO) to cancel the two marks from the register. Not only that but the court declared the Plaintiff’s ROLLING STONES, THE STONES and the Lips and Tongue logo trademarks are well known.

One interesting point to note was that the TMO legal team filed arguments against Musidor. This is a common problem with the TMO. The TMO is joined as a party to enable them to be bound by the cancellation order. However the Commercial Court rejected their arguments. It is not clear what they were here; typically they argue the examiner properly examined the mark and it should not be cancelled. The TMO’s role in cancellation actions is very murky in Indonesia. They really should not be filing cases arguments against plaintiffs; their arguments are almost always rejected by the Courts. It would be far better if they did not get involved in pointless court arguments about validity of marks, unless there is an allegation of fault against them. 

Tony Budiman filed a Supreme Court appeal and this was rejected. A question arose over the time limit for filing cancellation cases. The Supreme Court confirmed that in the case of bad faith (which this clearly was), the 5 year limit did not apply.