In June last year we proudly announced that Waterfront partner Matthew Harris had been named one of WIPO’s “Legal Rights Objection Experts”. These experts were tasked with deciding disputes between applicants for new “generic Top Level Domains”. Some predicted that few would use the LRO process, but approximately 70 cases were filed. Matthew sat on a number of panels appointed to decide such disputes. These included the controversial <.wiebo> and <.微博> Chinese micro-blogging cases.
In the last few days WIPO has released its list of “Trademark Post Delegation Dispute Resolution Experts”. The TPDDR is intended to be a higher-level rights protection mechanism aimed at situations where a registry’s operation or use of a domain leads to or supports trade mark infringement. Matthew has been named as one of only 7 UK based lawyers on this panel.
Further details of the TPDDR process can be found on the WIPO website here.
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…