Katfriend Darren Meale
presented his
Retromark Volume XVI which provides a rundown of nine notable UK trademark cases from the last six months, covering issues such as bad faith, broad specifications, the definition of the average consumer, costs in IP litigation, post-sale confusion, and the fragility of goodwill and trademarks after company dissolution.
Marcel Pemsel
reported on the General Court's decision in
T-144/24, which broadened the application of the Aladin case law on partial use, holding that genuine use established for one type of goods can also cover goods in a different class if they belong to the same homogeneous category.
Eleonora Rosati
discussed an Italian story involving actor Raoul Bova who filed trademark applications for phrases from leaked audio messages, raising questions about using trademark law to protect privacy and the potential for a bad faith finding due to lack of distinctiveness or public policy concerns.
Katfriend Willem Leppink
reviewed a UDRP decision that proposed a new set of criteria, the "Lost Mary criteria", for assessing legitimate interest in domain names used by resellers, challenging the long-established Oki Data criteria and raising questions about the balance between reseller rights and trademark owner protection.
