The Office has accepted other slogans for registration as Community trade marks. The present mark is also a slogan which should equally be registrable. It is therefore admissible. In an unspecified context, the slogan might be interpreted, in the first place, as a recommendation to people suffering from diabetes, intended to encourage them to practise walking as a way of overcoming the disease. In the context of fund-raising activities, which are the specific services covered by the application, the phrase may act as a general call to participate in, or support, sponsored walks.
Charitable walks are a common method of fund-raising.
Members of the public on seeing this slogan on e.g. a pamphlet, in a newspaper advertisement or on a T-shirt would understand immediately to what it referred. They would read it as a promotion of a charitable walk. They would not associate the words with a particular provider of charitable services or related goods. The mark is clearly not capable of distinguishing the appellant's charitable services from identical or similar services of other providers since the form of words is too conventional to contain any distinctive trade mark element. The mark is also clearly devoid of any distinctive character, for essentially the same reasons, when applied to printed matter or to clothing since it would be understood, not as an indication of a particular origin, but as a general message promoting such charitable events.