In June 2022, we reported on a judgment striking out aspects of Tesco’s counterclaim in its trade mark dispute with rival supermarket Lidl. The Court of Appeal recently upheld Tesco’s appeal against that finding, in a decision that provides further clarification on the law on bad faith and trade marks (Lidl Great Britain Ltd & Anor v Tesco Stores & Anor). Bad faith The appeal mainly concerned Lidl’s wordless mark (pictured). Lidl’s first application to register this at the UK

Lidl has won the first skirmish in its trade mark infringement case against Tesco concerning the latter’s use of a yellow circle on a blue background. In a judgment on 13 June 2022, Mrs Justice Joanna Smith DBE granted Lidl’s application to strike out Tesco’s counterclaim which had alleged that some of Lidl’s marks should be declared invalid on ground of bad faith. She also granted Lidl permission to rely on its survey evidence at trial. The case is now set to go to a full tr

A common trade mark filing strategy in the UK and EU is to file a broad trade mark specification. A broad specification makes enforcement easier and allows room for the pivots that are common in new businesses. The down side of broad trade marks is that they block the register for future applicants. This issue has been put into the spotlight thanks to the longstanding litigation between Sky and SkyKick - previously discussed here. In the latest SkyKick judgment, the Court of

The EU General Court has upheld the EUIPO Board of Appeal decision in the MONOPOLY trade mark case. This is a long anticipated and important decision which will have an impact on trade mark portfolios in the EU and beyond. In essence, the EU has ruled that it is not permissible to refile the same or a similar trade mark within the 5 year grace period during which non-use requirements do not apply. What happened? Hasbro filed an EUTM application for MONOPOLY, covering various

The IP Enterprise Court (IPEC) has enabled smaller businesses to fight back against perceived intellectual property (IP) injustices. Its simplified procedure, capped approach to costs recovery and tight case management make it a much more effective means of dispute resolution for the majority of IP claims. A recent example of the IPEC in action looks at cryptocurrency. Wirex Ltd v Cryptocarbon Global Ltd & Ors concerns a UK trade mark registration for CRYPTOBACK. The trade ma