Protecting brands

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 Superannuation etc) and licenses them to its joint venture partners. Sir Richard is, after all, an expert licensor. In this case, the Australian company beat Sir Richard to filing a trade mark application, and we can only guess that he doesn’t like it. I told the Age/SMH that if the Australians are successful, this would probably be the first time Sir Richard has lost control of any part of his brand.

The parties have taken 21 months to negotiate a resolution, and there does not appear to be an answer yet.