Registering your original business logos and artwork as trade marks really is the only effective means of protecting them and reliably maintaining your brand. The point was clearly made by a High Court case in which a small sportswear company…
Customer databases are the lifeblood of many businesses, taking a great deal of time and money to compile. They can, however, be pirated in a matter of seconds and, as one High Court case showed, that can give rise to…
There is a tendency to believe that photographs and other copyright works posted on the Internet are free for anyone to use as they wish. One case concerning a classic photograph of poet Dylan Thomas proved how very mistaken that…
In popular myth, the Internet is as lawless as the Wild West – but one important High Court case has strikingly revealed that the law can take very effective steps to block wholesale infringement of valuable trade marks online. The…
Intellectual property (IP) rights are fiercely protected by the courts, and the consequences of breaching them can be severe indeed. In one case, a company which profited from infringing a patent in respect of a novel type of calliper used…
In the area of intellectual property (IP) law, the small firm has every chance of defeating the megacorporation, especially as regards ownership of domain names. In one case, which underlined the potential costs of failing to register Internet domain names…
The Internet has made it possible for almost anyone to export goods worldwide – but that unfortunately includes counterfeit merchandise. In one case, a man who sold £250,000 worth of fake T-shirts from his garage, in wholesale breach of copyright,…
The law of intellectual property is seldom simple or without surprises. In 2014, the High Court decided that the 'corrugated' shape of the Kit Kat chocolate bar, whilst unremarkable in itself, had acquired a 'distinctive character' by way of use…
Too many people, buying or selling a 'knock-off copy' of a branded item may seem a relatively minor matter but, given that brand owners invest billions of pounds annually in promoting their brands, it is unsurprising that the law which…
An intellectual property decision which surprised some when it was made in 2014 has been reversed by the Court of Appeal. It involved the importer and distributor of a branded pharmaceutical product which had an exclusive licence to use the…