In part one of this series, Cherrie Stewart, Director and Chartered Trade Mark Attorney, looked at some of the risks inherent in trade marks and their management, including cautionary real life tales of trade marks gone astray. There are some ways to mitigate these risks and partnering with a trade mark attorney is one of [...]
History of the European Union Trade Mark and the EUIPO Where would we be without the unitary European Union trade mark registration? Before the creation of the European Union trade mark registration, if you wanted to protect your trade mark in multiple countries of the European Union, you had to apply to register the trade [...]
The UKIPO commissioned a study on ‘The impact of complicit social media influencers on male consumption of counterfeit goods in the UK’ and discovered some interesting things. A fairly recent trend is the increasing role influencers play in persuading the public to purchase a large range of goods. Influencers are trusted partners and work their [...]
Last year, we reported on the battle between the supermarket giants Lidl and Tesco over the large yellow circle used by both as a sign to identify their goods and services (see https://maclachlan.ie/the-case-of-the-yellow-dots-lidl-v-tesco/ ). Justice Joanna Smith found in favour of Lidl concerning their claims of trade mark infringement, passing off, and copyright infringement. The [...]
Following a long legal dispute that spanned 30 years, the High Court has concluded that an Irish company in Monaghan, Montex Holdings ( Montex) copied the Trade Mark DIESEL owned by the Italian clothing company Diesel SPA ( Diesel ). The dispute concerned who in fact owned the Trade Mark DIESEL. Montex commenced using the [...]
As in every other industry, the field of Intellectual Property is full of terminology and jargon which is oftentimes misunderstood. We frequently receive ‘phone calls asking for advice on how to “copyright” a new invention or “patent” a brand. Even the term ‘Intellectual Property’ is open to misinterpretation. So, what is Intellectual Property? Intellectual [...]
Peter MacLachlan, Director and Trade Mark Attorney, joined Deirdre Martin, of Deirdre Martin Consulting on her podcast, "Master your Business". He discussed the ins and outs of Intellectual Property, speaking in more detail about how a business can protect their trade marks and what advantages this lends. Peter also gave some valuable tips and tricks [...]
On Wednesday I jetted off to Prague, the City of Magic, to attend the annual conference of the ECTA organisation, a conference for those working in the field of Trade Marks. Taking inspiration from the host city, the conference took the theme ‘Exploring IP Magic’ and what a magical conference it was. The tone of [...]
The War against Counterfeit Goods The war against counterfeit goods rages on with Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), i.e., patents, designs, trade marks and designs, etc., being a major weapon in the fight against the spread of these damaging goods. The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) has recently released the results of a survey concerning [...]
If you are considering what signs should be used to identify your new product or you have decided to re-brand, you will want to ensure that your products stand out in the marketplace and one way of doing that is to adopt unique signs as indicators of your brand, i.e., a trade mark. A trade [...]
