After many years of litigation (including a preliminary ruling by the European Court of Justice under docket no C-409/12), it is now final: “Kornspitz” is (not) a trademark.
This sounds strange, but it is true: The crucial question subject to the proceedings was whether the trademark “Kornspitz” became a generic term in Austria because it designates a specific bread roll that is very popular amongst Austrian consumers.
The Austrian Supreme Court recently approved the Vienna Appellate Court’s legal view that “Kornspitz” has meanwhile become the common term for referring to said bread roll when dealing with Austrian consumers (Supreme Court, 4 Ob 63/15s). Thus, the trademark is to be deleted insofar it covers finished products targeting consumers, namely “pastries, confectionery, also prepared for warming up“. To that extent, the trademark-owner has to accept the development of the trademark to a generic term since the proprietor failed to properly communicate to the Austrian consumers that “Kornspitz” actually is a registered mark.
However, the “Kornspitz” trademark was sustained for all raw and intermediate products that (predominantly) target resellers, i.e. bakeries. For “flours and cereal preparations, bread improvers, dough pieces, also frozen, for the preparation of pastries“, “Kornspitz” thus still enjoys trademark-protection.