The BBC has come under fire this week after it has been accused of trade mark infringement in its new women’s sport promotion. The promotion in question depicts the image of British athlete, Dina Asher-Smith, taking a lead against other sprinters on an athletics track with the wording ‘SLAY IN YOUR LANE’ emblazoned across the…
While Brexit may evoke different emotions in different people, it was nonetheless surprising when the EUIPO’s examiner denied the registration of the mark “BREXiT” on the ground that EU citizens would be “deeply offended” by the use of the word as a trade mark. The examiner’s reasoning went on to state that it was an…
The estate of the musician Prince, the interests of which are represented by Paisley Park Enterprises (“PPE”), has been fighting a monumental, lengthy, and (we presume) incredibly costly battle to register as a trade mark a shade or variant of the colour purple in the US. The battle began in 2017 when Pantone, the New…
Guns N’ Roses, the legendary rock band, is suing the Oskar Blues Brewery for trade mark infringement in the US. Like most musicians the iconic rock band owns a great many trademarks for various images and phrases associated with it, including, of course, “Guns N’ Roses”. In 2018 when the Oskar Blues Brewery began selling…
LEGO has succeeded in a Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (“UDRP”) complaint to the World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”). WIPO’s UDRP complaint procedure is a streamlined and efficient way for rights-holders to prevent infringement in domain names. The upsides of the procedure over traditional litigation are quite simple: it is cheaper, quicker, and one of the…
Entertainment One (“eOne”), the Canadian company that creates and owns the precocious but tedious Peppa Pig (and her family and friends) have been hard at work suing a plethora of Chinese companies for importing counterfeit merchandise into the US. The complaint detailed a number of online platforms that had been created with a real look…
Erik Brunetti, owner of clothing label FUCT, has been in Court this week to put forward arguments in support of why his brand name should be afforded trade mark protection. In 1990, Brunetti and professional skateboarder, Natas Kaupas, founded clothing brand FUCT, a streetwear apparel brand known for the incorporation of anti-government campaigns in to…
Battles are usually illustrated in comic books, however, recent intellectual property news tells us of a trade mark opposition battle between comic book companies, Goode Enterprise Solutions Limited and Marvel. In March 2018, Goode Enterprise Solutions, filed a US trade mark application for ‘Return of the Guardians’ covering classes 16, 25 and 41; notably comic…
The EU figurative trade mark for the well-known children’s character, Peppa Pig, has prevailed in a three-year invalidity battle against an EU figurative trade mark for what is described as a ‘tapir head on a human body’ teamed with the wording “TOBBIA” (“the Tobbia sign”). The Peppa Pig sign depicts the pig in black and…
The wider Kardashian family (including younger sisters Kylie and Kendall Jenner) do not seem to be able to stay out of the intellectual property news lately. Perhaps that is because when they throw their hefty social media weight behind something, it inevitably becomes a target for opportunist copycats and infringers. Perhaps, however, it is because…
