On July 25, 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) must reconsider whether the KitKat shape had acquired a distinctive character within certain EU states in order to be registered as an EU trademark. The case concerns Nestle’s application of the “4 Finger KitKat” shape as an EU trademark, which EUIPO agreed to register in 2006. According to the press release, a competitor challenged the trademark at the General Court, which found “that EUIPO had erred in law in finding that the mark at issue had acquired distinctive character through use in the EU, when such acquisition had been proved only for part of the territory of the EU.” On appeal, the CJEU agreed and held that although it is not necessary to provide evidence that an item has obtained a distinctive character for each individual EU member state in order to obtain a trademark, “the evidence submitted must be capable of establishing such acquisition throughout the Member States of the EU in which that mark was devoid of inherent distinctive character.” The CJEU held that the “General Court was right to annul EUIPO’s decision, in which EUIPO concluded that distinctive character had been acquired through use of the mark at issue without adjudicating on whether that mark had acquired such distinctive character in Belgium, Ireland, Greece and Portugal.”