April 13, 2009

In a blog post earlier this year I mentioned how we were being charged £15 by HSBC for transferring funds to OHIM in respect of our clients’ European Union trade mark fees, only to suddenly find we were being...

April 14, 2009

Domain names are an important aspect of branding.  When registering domain names people often wonder which domains to buy.  Some advisers advocate buying the sucks.com version of your brand to protect against aggrieved...

April 21, 2009

I attended a talk recently which was advocating book writing as a way to promote ones personal brand.  Then the speaker said:  “Some people are reluctant to write about their area of expertise because they fear they...

April 30, 2009

Continental Wine & Food Limited has applied to register the mark TWITTER for beer, wine and other alcoholic drinks;  Can they do this?

As a general rule trade marks are granted for particular activities...

May 7, 2009

Keyword advertising earns search engines an essential stream of revenue.

Google and Yahoo, who allow use of competitors’ brands as keywords in pay per click advertising, have both had to defend their position in the courts across...

May 12, 2009

What is a scam?  According to the consumer fraud reporting “A confidence trick, confidence game, or con for short (also known as a scam) is an attempt to intentionally mislead a person or persons …. usually...

May 15, 2009

Interest in this matter was heightened when the Ipkat took it up here.  Many people got in touch, and some have apparently contacted CTMFS directly to complain about the misleading nature of the pro forma invoices their...

May 23, 2009

When I wrote the postscript about the Community Trade Mark Filing Service, I assumed that would be the end of it. Obviously I had not understood Mr Evans. Having now received a solicitors’ letter in which they have even...

May 24, 2009

I think it’s worth looking at what has happened here given the allegations of defamation.

It all started when I posted a tweet on Twitter mentioning that 3 clients had received CTMFS’ ‘invoices’. Ending with...

May 25, 2009

The incident involving Community Trade Mark Filing Service and defamation threats has been thought provoking on many levels.

Only recently I wrote an article on online reputation monitoring for the Society of Computers and Law...

May 27, 2009

Azrights has set up a networking group for small law firms (of fewer than 5 partners).  It is called Firm Links.

Its purpose is to afford small law firms an opportunity to discuss matters of mutual interest.  It will provide...

June 1, 2009

Now that the High Court in Interflora v Marks & Spencer has suggested a referral to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on the question of trade mark infringement for using of competitors’ keywords in adwords campaigns, (...