Waterfront has been acting for Shark AG in High Court trade mark infringement proceedings against Monster Energy and Coca-Cola. The trial of these proceedings was due to start in the High Court of England and Wales on 7 October 2013. This litigation formed part of larger series of worldwide disputes between the soft drink manufacturers, stretching from Australia, the Far East, Europe and all the way to South America, all concerning the trade marks BRING OUT THE BEAST and UNLEASH THE BEAST.
On 1 October 2013, Waterfront assisted Shark AG in concluding a worldwide co-existence and settlement agreement with Monster Energy, which involved a substantial payment being made by Monster Energy to Shark AG.
Copyright litigation proceedings brought in London’s Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC) against John Lewis, and its cartoon dragon ‘Excitable Edgar’, have been dismissed.
Superman is Clark Kent. Batman is Bruce Wayne. And Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, is…Dr Craig Wright (or so he claims).
As AI technology develops, we are now firmly in the age of non-humans authoring literary content which might be worthy of protection under intellectual property laws.
One of the hottest trade mark issues around at the moment is the question of how effectively can trade mark rights protect brand owners’ interests in non-fungible tokens (otherwise known as “NFTs”).