Patents reward originality, and inventions that are obvious developments on pre-existing designs do not qualify for protection, however successful they may be. In a ground-breaking case on point, patent protection was denied in respect of a one-man invention which revolutionised the garden hose market. An
Not everyone is particularly observant or attentive and the names of businesses and other organisations do not have to be identical in order to sow confusion in the public mind. The High Court made that point in upholding a trade mark infringement claim brought by
New inventions can transform entire industries, rendering existing products more or less obsolete, but they almost inevitably give rise to patent disputes. A case on point concerned a revolutionary garden hose design that solved problems of storage, weight and kinking all too familiar to gardeners
Patents are designed to encourage innovation and are effectively state-sponsored bargains which confer time-limited monopoly rights on inventors. As an important Supreme Court ruling made clear, however, such rights are restricted to ideas and products that are genuinely innovative. The case concerned a pharmaceutical company’s
Trade marks are amongst the most valuable assets of many companies and careful professional monitoring of the trade marks register is necessary to protect them. In a case on point, a member of the Virgin group of companies successfully resisted registration of the word ‘Virginic’
Decisions as to whether a product infringes registered design rights frequently come down to matters of general impression. That was certainly so in a Court of Appeal case concerning heart rate monitoring devices used by fitness enthusiasts. The proprietor of two registered community designs (RCDs)
Fortunes spent on establishing successful brands would be largely pointless without trade mark protection and, as a High Court case showed, that is why professional advice from an intellectual property expert represents a sound investment. The case concerned a company that provided psychiatry and mental
Many companies rely on the distinctive get-up of their vehicles as an essential part of their public-facing image. A High Court case involving a fleet of vans that sported a model of an oversized screwdriver on their roofs showed how, with the right legal advice,
Registering your original business logos and artwork as trade marks really is the only effective means of protecting them and reliably maintaining your brand. The point was clearly made by a High Court case in which a small sportswear company succeeded in a trade mark
Wholesale infringement of well known manufacturers’ intellectual property rights is often seen by the unscrupulous as an easy route to profits. However, a case in which the High Court granted a search and seizure order to a household name car maker showed that judges are
