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When businesses merge with or acquire other businesses, the challenge for IP professionals doesn’t stop once the deal is complete. For IP rights to be properly updated and maintained, the question of how to brand and structure the newly merged business first needs to be addressed.
Two types of trademark watching exist to help brand owners to protect their rights: Trademark watching for conflicting trademark registrations and keyword monitoring for unauthorised use of brand rights online. We explain why these services are so important and how they work.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) became a hot topic and a potential cause of panic for many IP owners at the beginning of the year. Could the arrival of NFTs and the growth of the virtual herald a revolution for IP rights.
If you registered your brand name as a trademark, you can oppose the (more recent) use of a similar name for similar products and/or services if that use could cause confusion among the relevant public. To exercise your trademark rights, you must first monitor and identify for conflicting use.
Establishing valid priority claims can be challenging for co-applicants in Europe, as Stéphanie Landais-Patarin explains.
If you receive an invoice or special offer from a company you do not know, there is a risk it could be a scam. A growing number of dishonest companies are sending out fake invoices and misleading offers hoping to catch patent and trademark owners unaware.
Businesses and their trademark departments need to react quickly to new global and digital challenges today if they are to secure their brand for the future.
Brands routinely find creative and innovative ways to generate new customers or retain existing ones. A notable recent example of this has been the use of sub-brands to branch out into the same or a new market without jeopardising the parent brand’s existing position. Laura Morrish discusses the trademark implications.
Oppositions to EU trademark applications that included the word ‘Rocky’ have been rejected on the grounds that any likelihood of confusion with the titular film character has been neutralised by the obvious conceptual differences.
The system for design protection continues to expand with China the latest country to file an instrument of accession. The country will complete this process on 5 May 2022 making now a good time to consider whether your IP rights in China are adequately protected.
Domain names play an important role in the sales and marketing activity of any organisation, but the IP implications of registering and managing online channels can be easily overlooked, especially if responsibility sits outside the IP department with marketing and/or IT teams. We set out points to consider when seeking to align domain name registrations with trademark rights.
If a likelihood of direct confusion between two trademarks cannot be established, the courts may still be prepared to find infringement on the basis of a likelihood of indirect confusion. A decision by the England and Wales Court of Appeal over the ‘American Eagle’ trademark provides some insight into the circumstances necessary for indirect confusion to apply.