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28 September 2021TrademarksAlex Baldwin

Spiritualists face-off over ‘Archangel’ TM

The English High Court has invalidated a spiritual therapists’ trademark in a dispute over similarly branded “holistic therapy” and “spiritual education” courses.

Claire Stone, a UK-based spiritual author and therapist accused a competitor of infringing her mark “Archangel Academy”, the name of her online “metaphysical education” course established in July 2019.

“Archangel Academy” is registered to Stone under UK trademark 3433634 covering Class 41 for a “training course for soul development—yogic sciences—quantum physics”.

Stone argued that rival spiritual therapist Alexandra Wenman had begun marketing her own course under the “Archangel Academy” branding in Autumn 2019, which could likely be confused with Stone’s course.

However, Wenman managed to prove her continued usage of the “Archangel” sign back to 2010, leading Judge Melissa to invalidate Stone’s mark for misrepresentation and drop the infringement charges in a judgment handed down on Wednesday, 22 September.

Wenman’s defence

Wenman argued that she offered “spiritual and holistic education, training and therapy services” under the “Archangel” brand since 2010, and had built goodwill and a reputation for spiritual services using the brand.

As evidence, she submitted more than 30 articles referencing her usage of the name “Archangel Alchemy” she had written between 2010 and 2013.

Wenman claimed that Stone had attempted to pass off her “Archangel Academy” trademark as somehow related to the “Archangel” brand established by Wenman more than a decade prior.

Judge Melissa Clarke said that Wenman had demonstrated sufficient usage of the “Archangel” sign prior to September 2019, to a significant enough extent to generate goodwill prior to Stone establishing the academy.

Clarke said: “The defendant's customers looking for her services or courses might find the claimant's course and get confused, and the claimant's customers looking for her course might find the defendant's course and get confused.

“It seems to me inevitable in these circumstances that if someone who had been to one of the defendant's courses told another person she had been to an excellent Archangel Alchemy course without providing Ms Wenman's name, that person doing her own research might find the Claimant's course marketed under the trademark and attend it, assuming that it must be, or be connected with, the Defendant's Course attended by the original attendee. This would amount to a misrepresentation.”

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