Waterfront partner, Matthew Harris, acting as advocate has secured a win in a contested hearing before the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office in a recent trade mark invalidity case. US company Andover Healthcare Inc had sought to invalidate the KO-FLEX trade mark of Urgo Limited for bandages by claiming prior rights in the term COFLEX under the law of passing off. The case was unusual in that the hearing officer had to consider the scope of Andover’s rights in the late 1990s and this required a consideration of the impact of the Medical Devices Regulations 1994 on market practice.
The decision was issued on 4 February 2015, but only now become publically available on the UK IPO website
After three decades of collaboration with the Federation Internationale de Football Association (“Fifa”), Electronic Arts Inc. (“EA”), the company that owns EA Sports, has told fans that it will no longer produce its world-famous football video game under the name “FIFA”. It now plans to release a game…
“Muzmatch” is a dating and marriage app that provides Muslims with the means to find a marriage partner online in a way that is compatible with Islamic values. Match Group recently brought proceedings against Muzmatch for trade mark infringement and passing off. It relied on a number of…
This case review from our trade mark expert, Maria-Elena Cacace, highlights the pitfall of failing to do a thorough trade mark clearance search and then being clobbered several years down the line by a major brand owner. On 16 February 2022, Hacon HHJ handed down judgment[1] for a…