UKIPO celebrates British IP Day with first multimedia mark
The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has announced the first UK moving multimedia mark, granted to Toshiba, in celebration of British IP Day.
According to the IPO, registration of the mark is a “landmark legal moment that will feature in the timeline of UK trademark history”.
Prior to granting the Toshiba mark, the IPO required motion marks to be illustrated graphically, the office said. Applicants can now, however, use multimedia files to apply for moving marks, as well as holograms and sound marks.
Tim Moss, CEO of the IPO, said that “trademarks are likely to become increasingly innovative in the digital age, as organisations explore imaginative ways of reflecting their distinctive brand personalities using creative IP”.
“Under the amended trademark law, submission of motion marks, hologram trademarks and sound marks via multimedia format now enables examiners to see exactly what the creator of the mark intended,” Moss added.
Toshiba’s multimedia mark features the Japanese company’s logo and an origami-style motif.
Matt McDowell, head of communications at Toshiba Europe, said the company was “thrilled and honoured to be the first brand to legally protect our motion mark in the UK using a multimedia graphic representation”.
“Our communication strategy is a content centric, digital first strategy, and because of this, we believed it was essential to trademark all aspects of the brand, including our motion mark,” McDowell added.
London-based IP firm Marks & Clerk represented Toshiba for the multimedia mark application.
Jason Chester, associate at Marks & Clerk, called the mark’s registration “a milestone in the history of UK trademark law”.
“We hope that people are still talking about the Toshiba multimedia motion mark in 142 years’ time, when branding is likely to have taken on further new dimensions,” Chester added, in reference to the first UK trademark registration in 1876.
The news came as the IPO and other organisations across the UK mark British IP Day, which was started by the Alliance for Intellectual Property group in 2016.
To honour the day, the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS), a UK not-for-profit representing visual artists, launched its Fair Share for Artists campaign.
The campaign seeks to highlight the importance of the Artists’ Resale Right royalty, which DACS says is an essential source of income for artists.
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