ITMA Spring Conference, Claridges, London
John Alty, head of the UK Intellectual Property Office, kicked off proceedings with a discussion of the IPO’s work in the past year and its targets for the future. He acknowledged that the office faced difficulties, particularly to do with “genuine use, class headings and cluttering of the register”.
“There may be a number of unused marks on the register that act as a barrier to new marks, particularly for SMEs,” he said.
SMEs are a particular focus for the IPO, which is “working with the judiciary and colleagues across government to implement the Jackson review”. This review found that IP litigation can be expensive and time-consuming to the degree that it constitutes a barrier to justice for SMEs.
On the same panel, OHIM’s Vincent O’Reilly reviewed key cases of the past year, including Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) v BORCO-Marken- Import Matthiesen, which saw a decision of OHIM’s Fourth Board of Appeal overturned and the figurative sign ‘α’ allowed. O’Reilly said that the decision will “require a change of office practice” on single letters.
Dan Smith, partner at Wragge & Co, then spoke about advertising rules and regulations—a useful prompt for trademark attorneys who are asked to approve advertising campaigns and packaging information.
He outlined the various legal and industry-specific regulations at play, and gave cautionary examples of conduct that will fall foul of regulations. So a bin bag that claimed to be 100 percent recyclable might not be permitted, even if the claim were true, because bin bags are likely to end up on landfill sites and therefore won’t be recycled anyway.
With the London Olympics nearly upon us, sponsors and the London organising committee are steeling themselves for an onslaught from ambush marketing. Cameron McKenna’s Stuart Helmer explained the various threats and opportunities for companies looking to benefit from the Olympics, and also looked at the rules surrounding April’s royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton.
Other conference highlights included a fascinating presentation by Tobias Cohen Jehoram, of De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek in Amsterdam, about the challenges of new media to brand owners, and a talk from Nick Wenban- Smith, senior legal counsel at Nominet, about the difficulties of resolving domain name disputes.
ITMA will be running a joint seminar with the Licensing Executives Society in London in November.
