07 Jun, 2024 Update on the Australian Federal Court’s approach to non-English word trade marks in relation to infringement and revocation By Shehana Wijesena Julian Ferguson Non-English words are increasingly used by Australian companies to market goods and services. In February, Justice Charlesworth of the...
06 Jun, 2024 Use It or Lose It – Lessons from Seven Network v 7-Eleven Inc By Rebecca Currey Meggie Zhang A challenge by 7-Eleven has seen Seven lose its Australian registered trade mark for “7NOW” for the vast majority of goods and services...
30 May, 2024 Time’s Up: Growing Intermediary Liability for Online Platform Providers By Arthur Marsh rthurOn December 15, 2023, the Court of Appeal dismissed Samsung’s appeal of a High Court decision which held the tech giant liable for...
22 May, 2024 Look-alikes and trade dress protection: guidance from Italian Court on how brand owners can take enforcement action against third party imitators By Cristiana Andreotta To what extent can product packaging be an illicit look-alike of a competitor’s product packaging? A ruling by the Court of Turin...
15 Apr, 2024 The Green Light for Green Certification Marks By Brendon Vyas With sustainability and green claims being a key focus for many brands globally, the number of “green filings” has risen exponentially as...
05 Apr, 2024 Fallen angel: Australian Full Court pops the bubble on additional damages in trade mark infringement By Shariqa Mestroni On 23 February 2024, five judges of the Federal Court of Australia overturned an award of damages against an e-marketplace provider,...
02 Apr, 2024 Proving bad faith: it takes a tough cookie? By Nina Dorenbosch In a case centred around the iconic Dutch biscuit – the stroopwafel – the highest trademark court of the Benelux recently gave some...
19 Mar, 2024 Battle of the supermarkets: Lidl prevail at Court of Appeal over Tesco’s use of Clubcard logo By Ewan Grist The high profile dispute between supermarket retailers Lidl and Tesco has now come to a head at the Court of Appeal, with Lidl emerging...
11 Mar, 2024 UK Supreme Court looks at ‘targeting’ for online TM use By Nick Aries In a decision issued this week, the Supreme Court has for the first time addressed the issue of when the use of a trade mark on a foreign...
27 Feb, 2024 A Bone to Pick with Distinctiveness of Trade Marks By Lynne Lewis Sanya Bhatnagar Is the mark “Melbourne Bone and Joint Clinic” (the MBJC Mark) for medical and orthopaedic surgery type services in classes 35 and 44...
20 Feb, 2024 Battle of the cloudy ciders – “benchmarking” and trade mark infringement By Fred Cascarini Sharon Mutizira On 24 January 2024, the UK IP Enterprise Court issued a judgment concerning Thatchers’ and Aldi’s lemon cider products. Aldi admitted...
06 Dec, 2023 “Facing” the possibility of registering human faces as trade marks – EUIPO clears up the issue By Pietro Dettori It is well known that one of the main functions of a trade mark is to identify a person or trader’s products or services. In this way,...
29 Nov, 2023 Weak or not: Boss of what? – An Italian dispute over the strength of a trade mark By Federico Manstretta On 20th September 2023, the Italian Supreme Court issued an interesting decision that clarifies some questions concerning the...
20 Nov, 2023 Super Simon – a super trade mark? By Jan Bärenfänger Can a 22-second video be a trade mark? Perhaps a 22-second video featuring Super Simon can? That’s what an applicant wanted to know from...
16 Nov, 2023 Single letter, big nuisance: comparing single-letter trade marks By Julia Kostrzewa Trade marks composed of just a single letter have been examined by national patent and trade mark offices and the EUIPO, as well as by...
15 Nov, 2023 Partners in Crime: The notion of “close connection” & international jurisdiction in EU trade mark infringement cases By Guillaume de Villegas In its judgment of 7 September 2023, the CJEU clarified that an EU trade mark holder can sue multiple defendants, domiciled in different...