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.
A recent EU trade mark application for the word mark, PUT PUTIN IN, has been refused by the European Union Intellectual Property Office on the grounds of being contrary to public policy or to accepted principles of morality. While a fairly straightforward decision, this is a timely reminder…
Late yesterday UK time, it was reported that a lawyer for Twitter had sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg complaining about Meta’s new Threads app. Twitter claimed that it “has serious concerns that Meta Platforms (Meta) has engaged in systematic, wilful and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property”.
Copyright litigation proceedings brought in London’s Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC) against John Lewis, and its cartoon dragon ‘Excitable Edgar’, have been dismissed.