Rubik's Cube loses EU trademark battle

BRUSSELS • Rubik's Cube, the multicoloured puzzle that has kept many busy since the 1970s, has lost a fight to keep the European Union (EU) trademark protection that prevents cheap imitations.

A lower European court decided two years ago the shape's distinctive surface justified the right to a trademark valid in the EU.

But the EU Court of Justice ruled yesterday that EU trademark law seeks to prevent a company from getting "a monopoly on technical solutions or functional characteristics of a product".

BLOOMBERG

Russia detains Ukrainian 'saboteurs'

MOSCOW • Russia's security service, the FSB, said yesterday it had detained several people in Crimea, accusing them of being saboteurs sent by Kiev to attack infrastructure targets.

The group "planned to carry out acts of sabotage on objects of military and public infrastructure", the FSB said.

Ukraine's Defence Ministry dismissed the allegations.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Spanish cops nab 56 in child porn crackdown

MADRID • Spanish police have arrested 56 men in a crackdown against Internet child pornography.

The suspects, mostly aged between 40 and 60, are accused of "distributing over the Internet images of extreme cruelty involving very young minors", the police said yesterday.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Train crash: Worker on duty was playing game

TRAUNSTEIN (Germany) • A rail dispatcher admitted at the start of his trial yesterday his negligence caused a train crash that killed 12 people as he was playing a cellphone game while on duty.

Michael Paul, 40, is accused of involuntary manslaughter over the February accident near the town of Bad Aibling, in which two commuter trains collided head-on at high speed.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE