Trade Marks

Electric Rebirth: Rise of the Hummer EVs

Hummer EV driving through mud

Originally designed and built to provide the US army with ‘High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicles’ (HMMWVs), it is believed that Arnold Schwarzenegger was instrumental in getting Hummers to the civilian market after they caught his attention when he was filming a movie. He was so taken with them that he approached the manufacturers and played… Read more »

Amazon and eBay spurious takedown requests – getting de-listed products re-listed

Ebay Amazon takedowns

As a firm, we have recently seen an increase in the number of entrepreneurs whose product listings on e-commerce platforms like Amazon or eBay have been removed due to takedown requests alleging intellectual property infringements. As specialists in intellectual property law, we are used to dealing with situations where the question of infringement is not… Read more »

UK Trademarking in the Metaverse: NFTs for Goods and Services

It is not a surprise that the UK IPO has seen an increase in the number of trade mark applications which attempt to protect goods and services offered in the Metaverse. In Tribunal Practice Notice 2/2023 (“TPN 2/23”), which was published in April 2023, the UK IPO issued guidance on the correct classification of non-fungible… Read more »

Iceland (country) v Iceland (supermarket) – another chapter of the trade mark saga closed

In September 2022, I considered some recent developments in the Iceland trade mark saga in this article. Following those developments, the Grand Board of Appeal of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (‘EUIPO’) has dismissed the appeals of Iceland Foods Limited (‘Iceland Foods’) and decided to invalidate its ICELAND trade marks. Background The British chain… Read more »

McDonald’s are Lovin’ It with EUIPO Board of Appeal Decision Win

At the end of 2022 the EUIPO Board of Appeal annulled the 2019 decision to revoke McDonald’s BIG MAC mark and allowed the mark to remain on the register (Case R534/2019-4). Background to the case Supermac’s is a popular Irish chain of restaurants dating back to 1978. In 2017, Supermac’s Holdings Ltd (Supermac’s) filed two… Read more »

Trademarking in the Metaverse and NFTs – the MetaBirkin decision

In one of the first legal cases to assess how trade mark law will apply to digital images protected by non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”), a New York jury has found that the MetaBirkin images produced by Mason Rothschild infringe the trade mark rights of Hermès in its Birkin bag. Artist Mason Rothschild created images of a… Read more »

Absolutely Not Registerable Roundup- January 2023

As Trade Mark Attorneys, one of the questions we are asked on an almost daily basis is whether new marks are registrable. As UK IPO practice is forever evolving, it can be helpful to conduct regular reviews of the kinds of marks being refused by the UK IPO. In the latest instalment of our seasonal… Read more »

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