Luxembourg, 02/11/2004 (Agence Europe) - The heirs of Pablo Picasso continue their fight against the decision of the German car builder DaimlerChrysler to call one of its models "Picaro", although they are the owners of the Picasso brand. Pablo Picasso's heirs- Claude Ruiz-Picasso, Paloma Ruiz-Picasso, Maya Widmaier-Picasso, Marina Ruiz-Picasso and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, have called upon the Court of Justice to cancel the ruling of the Court of First Instance of the EU dated 22 June 2004, which came down in favour of the car manufacturer. The painter's heirs take the view that the Court of First Instance committed an error of law by refusing to take on board the visual and phonetic similarities between Picasso and Picaro into account. One of the questions raised was whether European consumers might get Picasso and Picaro mixed up.
The European agency for trademarks, in Alicante, and its board of appeal agreed to register Picaro as a Community trademark, which was confirmed by the European Court of First Instance in its ruling of last June. The painter's family maintains that Picaro is too close to Picasso to be registered. The Court is not expected to respond until 2006. (For more information on this dossier, see EUROPE of 23 June 2004, p.18).