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 [...]
In some countries, using a trade mark, i.e., those signs that identify your brand, may lead to an unregistered trade mark right, known as goodwill. Goodwill, in this context, is the attractive force that brings in customers. It's the reason why consumers choose to buy your goods again, based on their positive past experiences with [...]
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 [...]
Cherrie Stewart, Chartered Trade Mark Attorney, and Dr. Isabel Meenan, European and Chartered Patent Attorney, are hosting a webinar together with the Ballymena Business Centre, looking at how to protect Intellectual Property Rights. Aimed at entrepreneurs, innovators and SMEs, this seminar will introduce you to some of the actions you can take to safeguard the [...]
Christmas is coming, and there have been hints that snow may appear in certain areas. That means snowmen! We thought it would be fun to see what IP may be associated with snowmen to show that Intellectual Property (IP) can be found in every area of life. Patents The snowman has inspired creativity in those [...]
What is the collective noun for a group of trade mark attorneys? A posse? A tribe? A company? A troupe? I don’t know either, but around 200 trade mark attorneys from all over the United Kingdom and further afield were gathered in The Library of Birmingham at the CITMA Autumn Conference. I was in 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 [...]
