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Category Archives: Trade Marks
Too Late to Gangnam?
IPcopyrich is currently at AIPPI 2012 and sends this piece about “Gangnam Style”
Koreans are understandably proud of the worldwide success of “Gangnam Style” by PSY, carried on the back of the viral success of the song’s video parodying the opulent consumer culture of Gangnam in Seoul. So much so, that at the opening ceremony of AIPPI2012 (one of the most important intellectual property conferences of the year) in Gangnam, the Korean AIPPI president broke off in the middle of his opening address to launch into the Gangnam “horseriding dance” – it was quite a sight, though as neither we nor anyone else has preserved this for you on YouTube, you’ll have to take our word for it. You could ask the Prime Minister of Korea, who was in the audience.
A light touch
It’s your turn to get the coffee.
Guest contributor Annette Freeman writes:
When it comes to enforcing your hard-won trade mark rights, there’s the right way to do it and the wrong way to do it. As the old cliché says, it is wise to choose your battles; and it is also wise to carefully consider your weapons. To mix a few more metaphors, too often trade mark owners use a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Cadbury and the Colour Purple
Having been contested in the UK Courts for the last 8 years, the Cadbury decision of 1 October 2012 (Société des Produits Nestlé SA v Cadbury UK Ltd [2012] EWHC 2637 (Ch), 1 October 2012.) adds a little clarity to the murky waters of registrability of colour marks in UK trade mark law.
Guided largely by the Libertel decision in the CJEU (namely, that single colour marks may be registrable per se if described clearly and classified precisely through an internationally-recognised colour code system such as Pantone), Judge Birss QC moved one infant-step further and held that the context of the case must be assessed before any decision can be made on the registrability of a colour mark. Such assessment of the context of a case may include consideration of the limited availability of colours in relation to the goods and/or services in question and public perception of the mark. In Cadbury’s case, after consideration of the context of the case, its shade of purple was held by the High Court to be registrable in connection with milk chocolate products, though not the broader category of chocolate products in general.
Clearly, with around 100 years of evidence of use to support Cadbury’s claim to registration, the effects of this decision must be interpreted with some caution, though the focus on a general assessment of the context of a case is useful for other applicants wishing to register colour marks in the future.
Nick Bowie 17 October 2012
Colour Me Blue
IPcopy welcomes guest contributor Annette Freeman:
Colour me red…or blue.
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom, for me and for you
And I think to myself – what a wonderful world.
So sang Louis Armstrong, going on to croon about “Skies of blue, clouds of white” and ‘“the colours of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky”. But when it comes to trade marks, colours may not be there “for me and you”. A high-profile trade mark legal battle recently illustrated the difficulties of protecting and enforcing colour as a trade mark.
Small Claims Track in PCC
On 1 October 2012 the Patents County Court (PCC) introduced a small claims track to run beside the PCC multi-track.
The small claims track will be suitable for claims up to a value of £5,000 and is expected to be of benefit to individuals and SMEs who previously may not have wanted to start claims in the PCC.
Cases in the PCC small claims track will be handled more informally than in the PCC multi-track. Suitable cases relating to trade marks or passing off, copyright and unregistered design right may be brought in the PCC small claims track. However, claims concerned with patents, registered designs (including Community registered designs) and plant varieties may not be brought in the PCC small claims track.
If you’d like to know more, speak to your friendly neighbourhood trade mark attorney
IPcopy 