Archive - June 2014

Lush is a well-known manufacturer and supplier of cosmetic products, primarily under the LUSH brand. Amazon, the world’s largest online shopping retailer, used Lush’s trade mark, LUSH, as a Google Adword and as a part of the search function on its UK website. Due to Amazon’s use of LUSH in keyword searches, customers were directed […]

In the latest judgment in the ongoing dispute between Virgin Atlantic Airways (Virgin) and Zodiac Seats UK Ltd (Zodiac), ([2013] EWCA Civ 1713) the Court of Appeal has ruled that the validity (or otherwise) of patents based on the process of examination and grant in the EPO is not open to challenge in the English […]

Following a long standing legal challenge, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has today sided with Karen Millen in a ruling which should offer greater protection for designers in future. The dispute between the high-end, high street retailer and the Irish department store, Dunnes, centres on the design of a black jumper […]

A recent decision of the UKIPO Hearing Office (see here) has added to the growing body of case law concerning which products are, and which are not, entitled to a Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC). Those familiar with the pharmaceutical sector will be aware that SPCs provide an extension to the lifetime of patent monopolies for […]