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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 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...