As many readers will recall, Ed Sheeran was successful in his recent copyright case against Sami Chokri and others, after the judge – Mr Justice Zacaroli – found that Sheeran’s song “Shape of You” had not been copied from Chokri’s “Oh Why”. The same judge has now published a judgment ordering the defendants to pay Sheeran's costs, with an interim payment of £916,200 (Sheeran & Ors v Chokri & Ors). The defendants had argued that there should be no order as to costs, even thoug

In short, yes: the UK courts can grant a pan-EU injunction in proceedings that were pending on 31 December 2020, the day the UK left the EU. That was the conclusion of Sir Julian Flaux, Chancellor of the High Court, in his judgment in a dispute between Easygroup and Beauty Perfectionists (& others) over the latter’s use of the name easyCOSMETICS. Under the EUTM Regulation, EU member states can designate national courts as EU trade mark courts. These courts have jurisdiction t

A legal action for unjustified threats is a serious risk that trade mark owners run when making allegations of infringement, including by issuing takedown notices via online platforms such as marketplaces. As a recent decision showed, the risk of unjustified threats should not be taken lightly. The decision came in a dispute over knitting needles. The case dates back to November 2015, when Indian company KnitPro issued takedown notices to Amazon UK regarding wooden knitting n

There was not a lot of excitement in 2021 but one IP highlight concerned the ongoing Original Beauty v G4K saga. We first wrote about this dispute here. The 122 page judgment went into detail on the design process and inner workings of the two businesses - better known as House of CB and Oh Polly. Some other businesses might have decided to focus on identifying an appropriate settlement solution but instead we have had eight further judgments since the first High Court decisi

Passing off is often added as an afterthought to a trade mark infringement action. In those circumstances, it is very often successful. The line between a deception (required for passing off) and likelihood of confusion (trade mark infringement) is subtle but there is a significant degree of overlap between the two. However, where there is no registered mark and it is first necessary to establish goodwill in a particular name, logo or get up, the relevant deception is much mo