Author: Bill
Lookalike Trade Marks – Competition Is Fine But Unfair Competition Is Not
Dr Stephen James writes again for Ward Trade Marks. Stephen is a past president of CITMA, and a leading practitioner with almost 40 years’ experience in UK and EU trade mark law. This time he reviews an EUIPO trade mark opposition case where an application for a figurative trade mark covering sunglasses was alleged to infringe […]
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UKIPO Rejects Brexit (sometimes)
Dr Stephen James writes again for Ward Trade Marks. Stephen is a past president of CITMA, and a leading practitioner with almost 40 years’ experience in UK and EU trade mark law. This time he reviews another very interesting UK IPO case where the applicant applied to register Brexit as a word mark in class 32 for […]
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Masterchef Trade Mark Opposition – Cooking Doesn’t Get Any Tougher
Dr Stephen James writes again for Ward Trade Marks. Stephen is a past president of CITMA, and a leading practitioner with almost 40 years’ experience in UK and EU trade mark law. This time he reviews another UK IPO case where Shine TV, owners of the well known MASTERCHEF trade mark opposed an application for Mister […]
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Use it or lose it: a cautionary tale about coffee trade marks
Here at Ward Trade Marks we are happy to introduce our guest blog by Dr. Stephen James. Stephen is a past president of CITMA, and a leading practitioner with almost 40 years’ experience in UK and EU trade mark law. Under European (and UK) trade mark law, a trade mark registration may be revoked on […]
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Ward Trade Marks scoops prestigious exporter of the year award
Ward Trade Marks, one of the UK’s leading specialist trade mark attorneys, has been named the New Exporter of the Year in the recent Cambridgeshire Chambers of Commerce 2017 Global Awards. The company, with offices in both Cambridge and Suffolk, scooped this prestigious recognition having successfully registered and protected nearly 140 UK trade marks in 12 overseas markets, including the European Union and the US, over the last two years alone.
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Chocolate wars: bitter and not sweet
Like two heavyweight boxers, global chocolate manufacturers Cadbury and Nestle have gone through another round of trading blows against each other’s trade marks.
This time around and earlier this month, it was Nestle that was given the four-fingered count down in a knockout blow whereby the Court of Appeal judged that they couldn’t claim the shape of their KitKat bars as being registrable as a trade mark. The Court ruled that the four-finger design had “no inherent distinctiveness” and in any case the company had not marketed the shape of the bar for a considerable period of time.
READ MOREThe Ward Way
For us, the way we go about doing things is as important as their outcome. Ward Trade Marks strives to be an ethical company in everything we do from pitching for new business to running the accounts of established clients and onto how we engage with the rest of the world. The term corporate social […]
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WardWatch is your brand’s guard dog
WardWatch® uses specialist software to monitor both word and logo trade mark registers in the UK, European Union (EU) and beyond. For word marks the service reports on newly published identical and phonetically identical marks across all sector categories of relevance to a client company and for logo marks it reports on newly published visually similar marks, again across all sector categories of relevance to a client company.
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Ward Trade Marks 100% registration success rate
Ward Trade Marks, one of the UK’s leading trade mark attorneys with offices in both Cambridge and Suffolk, has confirmed a 100% success rate in the first or “examination” stage in registering client trade marks in the UK and EU over the last 12 months. The company, which has over 150 UK and non-UK clients, […]
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Do you love your brand enough?
Knowing the value of your brand is vital in delivering long-term commercial success. Increasingly in all walks of life, customers are looking to associate with brands that have a real meaning for them beyond the core business purpose.
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