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UKIPO Issues Design Guidance following Trunki at the Supreme Court
The UK design sector is extremely important to the UK with the Design Council’s Design Report of 2015 suggesting that the UK’s design economy generated over £70 billion in gross value added (GVA). The ability to protect intellectual property is vital and for the design sector the registered design right is a crucial available means of protection.
The recent Trunki decision at the UK Supreme Court made headlines recently with some designers fearing that the decision would cause uncertainty within the design industry (see, for example, “this decision will create chaos and confusion”; the “blow to Britain’s design community”; and, “this plunges design law into an abyss”). (more…)
Review of MIP’s Luxury Brand & Retail Forum
Manuela Macchi and Emily Weal
On 19 April 2016, two members of Keltie’s Design and Trade Mark Team, Emily Weal and Manuela Macchi, hosted a panel at the Managing Intellectual Property (MIP) Luxury Brand & Retail Forum in New York. Please see here for the conference programme.
The conference was attended mostly by New York based attorneys representing both US and European luxury and retail brand owners as well as by a good number of US private practitioners and a few European attorneys.
The Keltie-hosted panel included also Lynn Schreier, Senior Intellectual Property Counsel of the crystals, jewellery and accessory manufacturer Swarovski and brought to the delegates a European perspective on design protection, pre-product launch design clearance and 3D trade marks as a complement to design protection. (more…)
IPcopy’s Top 10 Posts from 2014
It’s nearly the end of 2014 which means that, along with the rest of the World+dog, it’s time to wheel out an End-of-Year ListTM of some description.
So here, in reverse order to try and build a modicum of excitement, are our Top 10 most read posts from 2014.
10. Unpacking the Trunki Judgement: Designs and Copyright with Magmatic vs PMS International
In at number 10 is a post from 2013 relating to the Trunki case in the High Court. Things have moved on now and we’ve had a Court of Appeal decision (see here) and more recently still the Supreme Court has given permission to appeal the Court of Appeal decision. Full details regarding the Supreme Court appeal can be found here but the “legal issue in this case relates to the significance attached to the fact that a graphical representation of a Community Registered Design shows no surface decoration”. (more…)
Trunki Revisited (or “Peter Jones, Dragon not Patent Attorney”)
Image from dullhunk* (via Flickr) under Creative Commons (click for licence)
Dragon’s Den returned to our screens last night and this therefore seemed like the perfect time to summarise one of the talks given at Fieldfisher’s recent Patent Experts Seminar on 10th July in their fabulous new offices overlooking the Thames.
In the opening session of the seminar David Knight looked over the recent Trunki decision (PMS’s Kiddee case versus Magmatic’s Community Registered Design (CRD) for the Trunki – see image below). While reviewing a design case in the context of a patent seminar seemed a little strange at first it ultimately proved to be an interesting take on the Trunki story and made us look at the position, assumed by one of the Dragons, that the product was not patentable.
Setting the scene David noted that designs protect how “it” looks whereas patents will protect how “it” works. When the Trunki design was originally presented to the Dragons back in 2006 they all decided against investing in the product after Theo Paphitis managed to break the strap on one of the suitcases. During the course of the grilling that inventor Rob Law received he was told by Peter Jones (the tall dragon) that “This type of product is not patentable…..I could have a competing product on the market within 7 days”. But how accurate was this patentability assessment? (more…)
What became of the Trunki? Magmatic v PMS at appeal
Back in September we reported on the result of the Magmatic v PMS case in which the Trunki faced off against the Kiddee Case at the High Court before the Hon. Mr Justice Arnold. At the High Court, PMS’s Kiddee case was found to infringe Magmatic’s Community Registered Design (CRD) for the Trunki.
However, PMS were given leave to appeal the case, and in January the case was heard in the Appeal Court before Lord Justice Moses, Lady Justice Black and Lord Justice Kitchin. The judgement has just been made available, and reveals that the Appeal Court reversed the High Court’s judgement, and ruled that the Kiddee case did not, in fact, create the same overall impression as Magmatic’s CRD, and so did not infringe. IPcopy takes you for another ride through the suitcase-animal fair…
Unpacking the Trunki Judgement: Designs and Copyright with Magmatic vs PMS International
Trunki’s CRD
[Update 2 March 2014: According to a number of newspaper reports on 28 February 2014 the High Court decision discussed in the post below has been overturned by the Court of Appeal. Update: 4 March 2014: the Court of Appeal decision is out and IPcopy’s follow up post can be found here]
Anyone who has passed through an airport recently will be familiar with the now infamous Trunki: the ingenious child’s ride-on suitcase that, I’m reliably informed, makes travelling marginally less traumatic almost bearable fun for all the family. Trunkis, sold by Magmatic Ltd, first rose to fame on the UK TV show Dragons’ Den, when the Dragons foolishly let the chance for a slice of the Trunki pie slip through their fingers. Unhampered by this rejection, Trunkis have taken the world by storm, and Magmatic have, to put it bluntly, made a Trunki load of cash out of them.
PMS, a plastics manufacturing company, noticed the success of the Trunki and saw a gap in the market for a discount version. Their product, the “Kiddee Case” sought to fill this gap. Magmatic claimed for infringement of its Community Registered Design Right, its UK Unregistered Design Right, and its copyright in the trunki case and it accessories. The cases found themselves before the Hon. Mr Justice Arnold earlier this year, and the judgement includes some particularly interesting conclusions. [A side-by-side comparison of the CRD, Trunki and Kiddee case can be seen here]
The full Judgement can be found here, and is a relatively accessible read, but IPCopy is here to guide you through the important questions decided by the Hon. Mr Justice Arnold. So, keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times, hold on tightly to the curly antennae in front of you, and let us tug you along through the highlights of the case…
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