The claimant producer of alcoholic drinks including Smirnoff vodka succeeded in an extended passing off action against the defendant marketer of a drink called VODKAT, which was a mixture of vodka and fermented alcohol having ABV 22%. The court found that the term ‘vodka’ denoted a class of goods with a reputation and a protectable goodwill and that the marketing of VODKAT had been such as to misrepresent to consumers that the product was vodka, and that this was likely to erode the reputation a ...
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An application for an interim injunction, restraining use of a name alleged to amount to passing off and trade mark infringement, was refused where the claimant had delayed more than a year in bringing the application. The claimant’s website BLINKX.COM provided access to film, television and video content, and the defendant had launched BLINKBOX.COM offering a service for viewing, customising and sharing television and video clips. It had been unreasonable and unjustified for the claimant to wai ...
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Nokia succeeded in establishing that two European patents belonging to the defendant and relating to mobile phone technology were invalid for lack of novelty and/or obviousness and had to be revoked. Had the patents been valid they would have been infringed by phones manufactured by Nokia.
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Claims for infringement of a patent concerning a water-based injection valve for use in oilfield exploration, and for infringement of design right in the valve, both failed. Further, the patent was invalid for anticipation and obviousness.Properly construed, the patent did not claim the feature relied on. Further, the priority document relied on did not disclose all the integers of Claim 1, and so the sale of the valve by the patentee before the patent application date anticipated the patent. Fu ...
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An appeal against the refusal of a number of supplementary protection systems was dismissed. The SPCs related to a UK patent claiming a method of making vaccines against whooping cough. The products for which certificates were sought were combination vaccines against a number of different diseases including whooping cough, and contained ingredients not protected within the meaning of the Regulation. There was no basis for treating vaccines as a special case.
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Motorola’s European patent concerning a messaging gateway system was invalid as lacking an inventive step, and was not infringed by two systems operated by the claimant under the well-known BlackBerry trade mark.
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An appeal was dismissed against a decision that a European patent was invalid because not susceptible of industrial application. The patent disclosed the antibodies to and polynucleotide sequence encoding a neutrokine human protein. The appeal was based on the subsequent finding of the Technical Board of Appeal of the EPO (TBA) that the description of the patent delivered sufficient technical information (concerning the effect of the protein on tumour cells) to satisfy the requirement of use in ...
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Where an action for copyright infringement against four defendants had been settled as against the first three and discontinued as against the fourth, the claimant was liable for the costs the fourth defendant had incurred until the date the notice of discontinuance was served. Costs were awarded on an indemnity basis because of the claimant’s unreasonable behaviour in joining the fourth defendant, delaying progress and refusing to negotiate. The action had concerned infringement of copyright in ...
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The respondent’s trade mark registered for hotel, restaurant and related services was revoked for lack of genuine use in the UK in the relevant period, where the proprietor of the mark had provided the services only via a hotel situated in the US. There was evidence that UK residents had stayed at the hotel but no evidence that there had been any marketing or advertising of the hotel in the UK. There was no need to decide whether advertising and marketing alone was sufficient to constitute genui ...
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A stay of English patent infringement proceedings pending resolution of declaratory proceedings in Sweden under Regulation 44/2001 art.27 was refused because the parties were not identical and indissociable. The patentee’s exclusive UK licensee was not a party to the foreign proceedings, and the licensee’s interests were different from those of the patentee (even though the licensee was the patentee’s British sister company). An interim injunction against the defendant’s activities in the UK was ...
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