Way more than an everyday interest in IP
On 30 June 2020, the Supreme Court of the United States (Supreme Court) handed down its decision in United States Patent And Trademark Office, Et. Al, Petitioners v. Booking.Com B.V. This decision considers whether booking.com is protectable as a trade mark in the United States. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), who had read more…
Wearables are all the rage nowadays, but some of us still sport watches with an analogue face. Indeed, some sought-after classic timepieces from renowned brands are assets in an investment portfolio. Point Tec Point Tec Products Electronic GmbH (Point Tec) is a German company that has been designing and developing watches for over 22 years. read more…
From fifty shades of gruyere to cheddar ideas, we in the IP team love cheese in all shapes and forms including… string cheese? String cheese is created through a manufacturing process that aligns the proteins in the cheese, which makes it stringy. We hear string cheese can even be sold in a can. String it on: read more…
The Federal Court has handed down a significant $4.5 million penalty over misleading claims made with respect to the over-the-counter muscular pain relief products, ‘Voltaren Osteo Gel’ and ‘Voltaren Emulgel’. The decision in Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare Australia Pty Ltd (No 2) [2020] FCA 724 makes it clear that the read more…
On 24 April 2020, Justice Perram of the Federal Court of Australia gave judgment in relation to a copyright dispute concerning the iconic Australian pop-hit classic, Love is in the Air, finding that a substantial part of the song had been copied by a US pop-duo, Glass Candy, and by France’s national airline, Air France, read more…
On 15 April 2020, the Full Federal Court dismissed an appeal against O’Callaghan J’s decision in Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC v Bega Cheese Limited (No 8) [2019] FCA 593. Importantly, this decision confirms that unregistered trade marks cannot be assigned without a sale of the underlying business which holds the related goodwill. The appeal read more…
American rapper, singer and songwriter Pitbull (Armando Christian Pérez) has successfully trade marked his tell-tale yell “EEEEEEEYOOOOOO!” that features heavily in most of his songs. It is one of the many famous Pitbull-isms, along with rhyming ‘Kodak’ with ‘Kodak’, or calling himself Mr. Worldwide and Mr. 305. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in read more…
Whilst In-N-Out don’t operate any permanent restaurants in Australia – only pop-ups, as we lamented in our previous post – the Federal Court ruled last week that its registered trade marks had been infringed by local chain “Down-N-Out” (DNO) and that In-N-Out had a sufficient reputation in Australia such that DNO was found to be read more…
It seems apt in the current climatic context that a number of recent Australian trade mark decisions have centred on swimwear and craft beer. Is my brand even … a brand? One of the more difficult and nuanced issues in trade mark law is whether a particular sign is being used in a trade mark read more…