Anyone would be grumpy if their IP was infringed, cat or otherwise, and so it comes as no surprise that Grumpy Cat Limited recently sued the owners of US coffee company Grenade Beverage for breaching an agreement over the use of the cat’s brand and image. Originally posted on Reddit, by the brother of the…
Have you ever worked on a commercial project with a friend, colleague or even a lover? When it was finished, were you clear on who owned the creative output? The reason I ask is that it’s often the case that this issue is a little fuzzy, particularly when it comes to copyright. Now don’t get…
Deal or no deal, if you have an EU trade mark you’re naturally going to be wondering what happens to it after the UK leaves the EU… In the first few weeks after the Brexit vote this issue was considered by many IP practitioners and it was generally thought that there would be some sort…
Trade marks are funny things really, they’re best described as “signs” or “signifiers of origin” and essentially they’re the way that consumers identify you. Because of this, they need to distinctive, so that consumers can distinguish your goods/services from the goods/services of your competitors. Typically brand names and logos are protected by trade marks as…
People love saying things like: “don’t sweat the small stuff”, “go with the flow” and “why don’t you just chillax”. Something which is worth noting however is that these people are never lawyers. Lawyers very much sweat the small stuff, are often reluctant to flow anywhere and never say chillax (admittedly I don’t think anyone…
So I’ve just had baby – strictly speaking it was actually my wife who had the baby, I mainly just cheered her on and let her squeeze my hand. It’s our first and so naturally we’ve been obsessing over every detail of our new daughter’s upbringing, desperately trying to ensure that we haven’t forgotten to…
My wife loves Lord of the Rings, I can take it or leave it to be honest, the films (at the risk of sounding like a millennial, I’m not really thinking of the books) are extremely long and, at times, pretty tedious (I can already feel the anger of all you Tolkienst’s out there) but…
Brexit Brexit Brexit, a word that was non-existent five years ago is now on everyone’s lips. So what does it mean? Well, as we all now know, Brexit means Brexit. Although for some this may be enough, intellectual property lawyers need to know more. Much has already been written about the potential impact of Brexit…
Puma has recently had its trade mark application for FOREVER FASTER refused in relation to footwear and sports goods. The EU General Court found that the mark was a simple laudatory statement which wasn’t sufficiently distinctive and, on that basis, it refused the application… Poor Puma? Well, the trade mark rules on distinctiveness are pretty…
Catchy title I hear you say, well yes, protected geographical indications are catchy, so catchy that they can be a complete block to your trade mark application, even if the mark you’re trying to register isn’t identical. This is what happened to the applicants for the EU trade mark TOSCORO. They applied for this mark…