Protecting brands

Attention designers, photographers and commercial creatives! If your work is onsold at auction (or in specified methods under the law), you may be entitled to a 5% cut.
An unintended side effect of the Australian government’s new Resale Royalty Right scheme is that some commercial creatives may receive a royalty on corporate identity sales because the [...]

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Client: “I want to take the brand name of the MP3 category leader, reverse it and register it as a trade mark. Can I do that?”
Most lawyers would automatically say no.
Instinctively, because it smells wrong, and surely is a clear indication of bad faith.
As has now been reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, that’s not [...]

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The organiser of themed dinner parties has been warned by Warner Bros against holding a Harry Potter party on Halloween.
Warner Bros pulled out the trade mark and copyright guns and alleged infringement.
This reminds me of the time Disney told a kindergarten they weren’t allowed to have a Disney themed concert.
Can the studios prevent themed parties?
Not [...]

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The trade marks register can sometimes reveal corporate infighting that would otherwise be kept quiet.
It shows that Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Enterprises is opposing trade mark applications for V Australia by a company associated with locally owned airline Virgin Blue. Huh? Virgin is opposing itself?
Normally, Virgin Enterprises owns all Virgin trade marks (Virgin Mobile, Virgin [...]

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Mischa Barton has done the creative celeb thing and is selling a range of handbags with her own brand.
All well and good, except that when she tried to register a trade mark in Australia for her name, her signature and her logo, she ran into an opposition from Australian company Mischa Accessories, which distributes handbags.
Likelihood [...]

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Trade mark applications for Jennifer Hawkins‘ swimwear brand have been opposed by local label Caussie.
Caussie sells men’s swimwear primarily on ebay.
While it looks like a David and Goliath battle, with Jennifer’s products being backed by retail giant Myer, it will probably all come down to whether Caussie and Cozi by Jennifer Hawkins are too similar.
Caussie [...]

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You may have seen the recent newspaper story about Apple Inc opposing the new Woolworths logo (pictured).
Currently Apple has 13 trade mark oppositions on foot in Australia.
Some of these look like obvious attempts to hop onto Apple’s iPod and iPhone bandwagon. Even before the trainwreck of iSnack 2.0 (which thankfully Kraft have decided to change).
There’s the [...]

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Kraft, the manufacturers of Vegemite, held a competition to name a new, more spreadable version.
After receiving 48,000 suggestions, they chose iSnack 2.0.
I’m not sure that’s a great idea, because Breville already own isnack as a trade mark for snack makers and sandwich toasters (although they’re not currently using it). It doesn’t necessarily stop Kraft from [...]

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The Age reports that a 100 tonne shipment of apples has been stopped on its way to Europe because the Brazilian grower didn’t obtain a propogation licence and pay for appropriate rights. The West Australian Agriculture Department owns the Cripps Pink variety and Apple and Pear Australia Limited controls use of the premium Pink Lady [...]

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Katie Perry is an Australian fashion designer, specialising in jersey dresses. She applied for an Australian trade mark last year but found that her application was opposed by US pop singer Katy Perry, famous for her teenage experimentation song “I kissed a girl”.
Lawyers acting for the US singer also sent a cease-and-desist letter, alleging that [...]

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