United Kingdom

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The UK Intellectual Property Office recently published a paper setting out an updated strategy on IP enforcement issues up to 2020 (see https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/protecting-creativity-supporting-innovation-ip-enforcement-2020). Its scope is broad, encompassing illegal online content and counterfeiting activity in all its forms, and it also has a strong international component. There are six main areas of focus. Two of…

Case law, Infringement action

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The UK Court of Appeal recently upheld the High Court’s decision that the use of ‘glee’ by Twentieth Century Fox (‘Fox’) as the name of its comedy TV series infringed an earlier trade mark registration for THE GLEE CLUB. So called ‘wrong way round’ confusion played a central role in this. The claimant (and respondent…

Opposition

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The General Court has upheld OHIM’s Board of Appeal in rejecting an opposition in which the shared element in the respective marks – PURE – was descriptive for the goods in question. This serves as a reminder of the difficulty of asserting rights on the basis of prominent descriptive elements within figurative or complex trade…