Category:
Branding, Trade Marks, Designs & Patents

17/02/16

Don’t stop believing: 20th Century Fox loses Glee trade mark case

20th Century Fox has lost the latest round in a UK appeal court battle against Comic Enterprises, a British comedy business operating comedy venues under the trade marked name ‘The Glee Club’. Comic Enterprises first opened The Glee Club in Birmingham in 1994, and has branches in Cardiff, Nottingham and Oxford. It registered its trade...

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Passing off wins over delay

The Federal Court has recently provided some guidance on how damages will be assessed in passing off cases. Winnebago- the well-known American manufacturer of RV’s – successfully sued Australian RV manufacturer Knott Investments for passing off back in 2010. By way of a short history of the matter, back in 1978 Knott Investments, without Winnebago’s...

Can I sing Happy Birthday without being sued?

Two years later and the world can almost sing Happy Birthday without paying a large sum to Warner Chappell Inc. It was recently held that Warner does not own a valid copyright in the Happy Birthday lyrics. Warner grudgingly agreed to pay $14m to settle, but asserted that it “respectfully disagreed with the court’s decision”....

Copying is the Highest Form of Flattery?

Louis Vuitton’s parent company LVMH filed a trademark case nearly two years ago against a tote bag company called My Other Bag. My Other Bag was creating canvas totes, which featured the Louis Vuitton iconic patterned bag on the side. LVMH has recently lost its legal battle against My Other Bag. The New York...

Copyright Catfight

Is your cat worth $100 million? If you answered yes, then you would be Tabatha Bundesen the owner of “Grumpy Cat”. Grumpy Cat is an ordinary cat with an underbite and feline dwarfism. This cat became an internet celebrity in 2012 because of its permanently grumpy face. The cat’s initial popularity originated from a picture...

Yellow? Or YELLOW? Yellow the colour, or yellow the word? Does it really make a difference? In the recent Telstra Corporation Limited v Phone Directories Company Australia Pty Ltd (2015) it did. YELLOW has been held to not be distinctive of Telstra’s phone directory services. In two separate prior judgements Justice Murphy of the Federal...

GOOGLE to the rescue!

An American individual who uploads a hilarious video of their cat, dog or goldfish jamming to a prince hit could potentially be served with a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) take-down notice for copyright infringement. A recent announcement by Google is set to alter this trend and ensure that appropriate users are protected by the...

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