Posts Tagged ‘trade marks’

When a key player in the Government’s plans to strengthen the IP framework, encourages business owners to file their own trade marks, explaining this is to help them afford trade mark registration, I wonder what’s going on. Many lawyers educate the public about the value of taking legal advice.  So, it is somewhat surprising for [...]

Intellectual property is the cornerstone of many modern businesses, and the law offers various mechanisms to safeguard know how, creativity, ingenuity and investment in reputation and marketing.  A significant complexity when it comes to securing rights is deciding which means of protection is/are appropriate.  An important factor in such a decision is the nature of [...]

We have been keeping an eye on developments in the dispute over the APP STORE mark.  A new chapter in this interesting saga has begun. The challenge against Apple is bringing in more supporters and expanding to other jurisdictions. To recap, in our first blog we explained how Microsoft applied to the US Patent and [...]

As explained in this press release we saw a need to offer a ‘virtual trade mark registration’ service for law firms due to the SRA Conduct Rules 8 and 9 (which prohibit fee sharing with non lawyers and regulate referral fees). So, if a law firm’s clients need a trademark it is not straightforward for [...]

Last week Azrights announced the launch of its trademark registration white labelling solution for law firms.  It is the first comprehensive trademark white labelling service for UK law firms. UK Regulatory considerations The impetus behind it was the Solicitors’ Code of Conduct Rules 8 and 9 which prohibit fee sharing with non lawyers, and regulate [...]

A trade mark can be refused where it is descriptive of the goods and services it covers. This could be where the mark ‘designates the kind, quality, quantity, intended purpose, value or geographical origin’ of the goods or service or other characteristic. For example, ‘GOOD BOOKS’ would be a descriptive trade mark in a class [...]

In a competitive market setting your products apart from other people’s is key to maintaining an edge. Product design is often an important characteristic of a brand. It could even be the USP of the business. Where, however, the function of a product dictates how the design is formed then Intellectual Property law provides few solutions, bar patents, to protect the design. In general, Design law is clear that it does not protect the functional elements of registered designs.

Businesses are often surprised to learn that trademarks, unlike domain or company names, do not have to be the same to prevent others from using or registering them. Similar names are also covered. Some interesting examples of how trade mark protection may extend to similar names are Facebook, the Easy Group, and McDonalds.

ky has apparently been battling against Skype for the past 5 years over the ‘Sky’ part of their name. Sky claims that its rights in the ‘Sky’ name are infringed by Skype, and that people are confused into believing them to be part of the same company.

The EU Regulation on nutrition and health claims made on foods were passed in 2006 to ensure consumers were not mislead by unsubstantiated health claims on food packaging.