September 13th, 2011
In a visit to Nottingham recently the Minister for Intellectual Property, Baroness Wilcox, revealed figures demonstrating that intellectual property rights including registered trade marks are worth an estimated £65 billion a year to UK businesses.
Two reports commissioned by the Intellectual Property Office (the body responsible for the UK regime of copyright, design, trade mark and patent rights), ‘The Role of Intellectual Property Rights in the UK Market Sector’ and ‘Film, Television & Radio, Books, Music and Art: UK Investment in Artistic Originals’ highlight that more than ever is being invested in goods and services capable of protection through one or more of trade marks, copyrights, patents and designs. The reports revealed that since 1990 business investment in intellectual property has more than doubled. The IPO intends to begin publishing figures on an annual basis as growth is expected to continue in coming years.
The Minister was in the city to discover how the University of Nottingham and a local low carbon business had benefited from protecting and licensing their intellectual property for commercial development. Speaking at the University’s Technology Demonstrator Wilcox said:
“Businesses who decide not to protect their intellectual assets are taking a huge financial risk because they may lose any rights to their creative ideas. Read the rest of this entry »
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September 13th, 2011
Samuel Smith Old Brewery (Tadcaster) v Lee (t/a Cropton Brewery)
[2011] EWHC 1879 (Ch)
This was a trademark infringement case in which a brewery held a registered trade mark in a stylised white rose which it used on its bottled beer and alleged infringement by another brewery releasing bottled beer with a label containing a white rose.
The two beers in issue produced by the defendant were Yorkshire Bitter and Yorkshire Warrior. Yorskhire Bitter was supplied to a supermarket. The supermarket took responsibility for the label which contained a white rose. The claimant sent a letter to the supermarket alleging trade mark infringement and passing off. The supermarket and the claimant concluded a settlement agreement and the supermarket commissioned a new label.
The label for Yorkshire Warrior was designed by the defendant and replicated the badge of the Yorkshire regiment. The MOD had declined to license the use of the regiment badge for this purpose because of the claimant’s trademark registration. Despite this the defendant continued to use the badge on his label. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 17th, 2010
Beifa Group Co. Ltd v OHIM, Schwan-Stabilo Schwanhaüßer GmbH & Co. KG (2010)
General Court of the Court of Justice Case T-148/08
This was an appeal against a decision of the OHIM Board of Appeal in an application for a declaration of invalidity in respect of a registered Community design.
The design in question was registered by Beifa in 2005. The application indicated that the design would be used in designs for ‘instruments for writing’. The design was used to market low cost fluorescent highlighter pens to the general public.
In 2006, Stabilo applied for a declaration that the design was invalid according to Article 25(1)(e) of the Community Designs Regulation 6/2002 (read in conjunction with harmonisedGerman trade mark law). In summary, they alleged that the Beifa design made unauthorised use of their earlier German registered trade mark and that this use created a likelihood of confusion among the public as to the economic origin of the highlighters, because the trade mark and the design were both registered for use in respect of ‘instruments for writing’, and the design was highly similar to the earlier mark. Read the rest of this entry »
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April 19th, 2010
Trademark registrations are territory specific, meaning that they will only entitle the owner to the exclusive right to use their brand name in a particular market (such as the United States or the European Union). Often a business will require protection from other parties free-riding or denigrating the reputation of its brand in more than one country. An international trademark registration is one way through which such protection might be obtained.
The concept of an international trademark registration (sometimes called an ‘IR’) can be somewhat misleading. This is because an application for trademark registration through the Madrid system is in fact a series of national trademark registrations, rather than one unitary international trademark registration. This is in contrast to the Community Trade Mark in the European Union, for example, where one single application will result in protection throughout the individual countries of the European Union if successful. Read the rest of this entry »
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April 12th, 2010
Nominet, the UK domain name registry, is planning to introduce two letter and one character domain names (e.g. ‘ba’, ‘0’, etc.). This type of domain name has previously been banned from use in relation to ‘.uk’ domain names because of a technical issue. As this issue no longer applies (except in relation to ‘com’, ‘net’ and ‘org’), around 2,000 new domain names can be released into the public domain.
The domains would be made available first to parties with a registered trademark identical to the domain name in question, and then to the general public. Where there are two or more parties with a pre-existing trademark registration that would entitle them to use the domain name, a number of proposals have been considered. For example, one possible solution could be to use a sealed bid auction for domains where there are two or more interested parties of the same business type. Read the rest of this entry »
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April 9th, 2010
A recent decision in Australia highlights the growing trend in trademark infringement litigation towards defending well-known brands against ‘own brand’ look-alikes being sold in supermarkets.
This practice has been going on for some time and involves producing goods in the same market as very well-known brands, and offering them for sale in very similar packaging to that used by those brands.
Of course, these brands are usually protected by a trademark registration and therefore their owners have the right to prevent the use of indicia associated with their trademark where that use is liable to mislead the public as to believing that the goods or services in question originated from them. Read the rest of this entry »
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March 23rd, 2010
Google France SARL and Google Inc v (1) Louis Vuitton Malletier SA (2) Viaticum SA and Luteciel SARL (3) Centre national de recherché en relations humaines (CNRRH) SARL and others (2010) Cases C-236/08 – C-238/08
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has now delivered its long-awaited judgment in the Google Adwords trademark infringement case.
The statements of law made by the Court are set out below. In summary, it was found that the provision of the Google Adwords service and any other such services cannot be restrained by trademark owners on the basis that the service constitutes trademark infringement. This was because Google and any other such service providers were merely providing a facility (which may or may not be used to carry out trademark infringement). This was not the same as using a trademark in the sale of goods or services, which must be proven to establish trademark infringement.
It was also noted however that the use made of Google Adwords by an individual could potentially amount to trademark infringement. Read the rest of this entry »
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