sutton044

A few days ago the High Court of England and Wales (Arnold J) issued an interesting judgment concerning determination of the law applicable to an online trade mark infringement. It is  Easygroup Ltd v Easy Fly Express Ltd & Anor [2018] EWHC 3155 (Ch) (21 November 2018 ) .  The claimant, easyGroup is the owner of a large number of marks. In particular, it is the proprietor of the word mark EASYJET for goods and services in Class 39 (transport, packaging and storage of goods, travel arrangement) of the Nice Classification, and a device mark including device mark the word easyFlights registered in respect of (inter alia) “transportation of goods … by air …; … cargo handling and freight services”, also in Class 39.  The two defendants’, Mr Chowdhury and his company Easy Fly, both based in Bangladesh, are the holders of the domain  www.easyfly-express.com   from which Easy Fly’s services (airline cargo) were marketed.             ...

Nusret Gökçe, nicknamed Salt Bae (the applicant), is a Turkish chef who owns ‘Nusr-Et’, a chain of steak houses. His art of cooking and preparing meat has become somewhat of an internet sensation [see here and here for some salty videos]. Salt Bae became widely known in 2017 for the way he ‘elegantly’ cuts meat and sprinkles salt. In particular, his fame comes from a viral video, ‘Ottoman Steak’, posted in January 2017 on his Twitter account. It has been viewed 10 million times on Instagram. After that Gökçe was dubbed ‘Salt Bae’ because of his iconic way of sprinkling salt by letting salt fall down on his forearm then spread on the meat.  In March 2017 the applicant sought to register the following motion mark as an EU trade mark: The application was for certain goods and services in Classes 25 (clothing, trousers, jackets, overcoats, skirts, suits), 30 (coffee, cocoa, artificial coffee, coffee-based beverages, noodles, macaroni, ravioli, bread, pastry and bakery product...

This evening, it was the annual IBIL and MARQUES event - Question the Trade Mark Judges   this time in UCL's snazzy new lecture theatre. This year the judges were: HHJ Melissa Clarke (Senior Circuit Judge, Designated Civil Judge for Thames Valley, Beds & Herts) Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei (General Court, Court of Justice of the European Union) The Hon Mrs Justice Vivien Rose Harri Salmi (EUIPO Boards of Appeal member) The debate was meant to be chaired by The Rt Hon Professor Sir Robin Jacob but due to various transport related delays, Roland Mallinson stepped into the breach for the first half. Both chairs posed a set of pre-selected questions from the audience. A quick plug from MARQUES Before things kicked off, Roland Mallison gave a short plug for MARQUES' amicus curiae team. If readers have any cases where it might be helpful to have MARQUES' input, they should get in touch. How much training is required to become a judge? The judges all had very different backgro...

Aargh, gosh we lost the appeal! Can a US corporation selling construction software only in the Americas under the name ARGOS be sued for infringement of a registered trade mark by a UK based consumer goods retailer who trades mainly in the UK and Ireland under the same name? This question is posed by Floyd LJ in the introduction to the Court of Appeal decision on the Argos Ltd v Argos Systems Inc [2018] EWCA Civ 2211 . The formulation of the question may make it easy to guess the Court of Appeal's ultimate decision. Background The IPKat report on the High Court decision is available here .  Broadly speaking, the dispute concerns the domain name argos.com and Google's AdSense programme. Floyd LJ handily describes this programme as follows: Google AdSense allows website operators to contract with Google to provide space on members' ("partners'") websites to display advertisements ("ads" for short). Google has a further programme known as AdWords, whic...

The final morning of the AIPPI Congress in Cancun was hot, the Caribbean air having whipped up a thick humidity that turned the AmeriKat's mane into lion proportions.  So it was fitting that there a panel session dedicated to Hot Topics in IP.  Dr Catherine Bonner ( Chapman IP ) was on hand to summarize what the next big things in IP will be.  No surprise that one of them included Brexit.  Over to Catherine for her report: The AmeriKat's view over the Caribbean waters "At the AIPPI Congress in Cancun the weather is hot, at 30°C and 71% humidity, and the IP Panel Sessions are the same. Wednesday morning’s Briefing; ‘Hot topics in IP’ excellently chaired by Eryck Castillo gave a summary of six burning issues in the World of IP.  1.  First up to the plate, with the "Implications of Brexit for IP" was Mr Justice Henry Carr ( UK High Court )     A tough topic and, as Carr J himself acknowledged, one that back in his days at the Bar he would have ...

The KitKat trade mark (as reported in the CJEU decision - the photocopier has not been kind) By now, the fate of the four fingered KitKat shape mark is old news -  Joined Cases C‑84/17 P, C‑85/17 P and C‑95/17 P   R umours of the mark’s death have been greatly exaggerated - it is now for the EUIPO to reconsider the evidence in light of the CJEU's ruling and reach a decision as to whether or not the mark is valid. Whilst the press may have put the cart before the horse, the CJEU’s decision does suggest that the mark will not remain registered long term. But this case has stickier and more sickly consequences for EU trade marks than a single chocolate bar. The real question is... What does this mean for acquired distinctiveness in the EU? It is not disputed that the shape mark (see above) is not inherently distinctive. Therefore, in order to avoid the mark being invalidated, Nestle had to show that it had acquired distinctiveness through the use that had been made of it in a suf...