All Articles in Brands

With more brand owners registering ad slogans as trade marks, the European Court of Justice has looked at whether they should be more difficult to register than single word brands.…

Yellow Pages recently announced the winners of its ‘Best Business Name 2004′ competition. The finalists were highly ingenious, humorous and distinctive brands, but had any of them bothered to register…

When a certain celebrity chef named a dessert in an exclusive London restaurant menu after a famous Wall’s ice cream sub-brand, he got a rocket from ‘m’learned friends’ at Unilever.…

Were competing women’s magazine titles so confusingly similar that only one could obtain registered trade mark status?   Topic: Brands Who: Mizz (IPC) v Ms (Liberty Media for Women LLC) Where: The UK Trademarks Registry When: June…

When it chose ‘The way to fly’ for its new strapline, was BA aware that the leading German airline had been using ‘There’s no better way to fly’ for its…

Once IBM had used and registered its WEBSPHERE trademark for software, it was not going to live with WEB-SPHERE software being sold by a modest but defiant UK company. For…

Can a ‘GERRI’ registered trademark in Germany be used to stop Irish mineral water being correctly described as ‘Kerry Spring’?   Topic: Brands Who: Gerolsteiner Brunnen GmbH & Co. v Putsch GmbH Where: The European…

When the European Court of Justice agreed ‘Baby Dry’ could be trade-marked for nappies, was it a false dawn for brand owners seeking to register phrases? We investigate the recent…

At the last hurdle, the application by business incentive specialists Red Letter Days to register ‘Experience gifts’ as a trade mark was way-laid by a consortium of competitors. But that…

What types of product were most trade mark registrations applied for in 2002/03? What is the online Trade Marks Journal all about? Have design registration applications increased since the rules…

‘Freekin Soda’ didn’t please the regulators, and ‘Freekee soda’ has now been dropped by Britvic as well. For our thoughts on what might have gone on behind the scenes and…

Since UK design laws changed at the end of 2001, there has been a steady growth in design registrations for branding devices. Why is this happening, and is it a…