Intellectual Property and Patent & Trade Mark Protection

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• Trade Marks: There aint no f....... justice

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  Jane Lambert    Group moderator

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  Trade Marks: There aint no f....... justice

  An amusing little case that I have to share with you is Mr Jones's decision in an appeal against the refusal to register the slogan mark THERE AIN’T NO F IN JUSTICE for tee shirts, sweat shirts, baseball caps.in class 25. The hearing officer had objected to the applicaiton on the grund that "the sign was likely to be taken by the public as a personal statement by the wearer rather than acting as an indicator of trade origin" under s.3 (1) (b) of our Trade Marks Act 1994 which implements art 3 (1) (b) of the Trade Marks Directive.
  
  After considering the authorities of the ECJ plus a local decision of our appellate tribunal for trade mark cases known as quaintly as "the appointed person" Mr Jones concluded, not unreasonably, that "the mark applied for will not be seen as a trade mark without first educating the public that it is one." Accordingly the mark applied for was devoid of any distinctive character and is thus excluded from registration.
  
  If you are at all interested, you can find the transcript of Mr Jones's decision at
  http://www.ipo.gov.uk/tm/t-decisionmaking/t-challenge/t-chal...
  and a conolidated version of our Trade Marks Act 1994 at
  http://www.ipo.gov.uk/tmact94.pdf
  
  Anything like this from anyone else's jurisdiciton?
  
  • 10 Jul 2007, 3:24 pm
  Jane Lambert wrote: > An amusing little case that I have to share with you is Mr Jones's > decision in an appeal against the refusal to register the slogan mark > THERE AIN’T NO F IN JUSTICE for tee shirts, sweat shirts, baseball > caps.in class 25. The hearing officer had objected to the applicaiton > on the grund that "the sign was likely to be taken by the public as a > personal statement by the wearer rather than acting as an indicator > of trade origin" under s.3 (1) (b) of our Trade Marks Act 1994 which > implements art 3 (1) (b) of the Trade Marks Directive. > > After considering the authorities of the ECJ plus a local decision of > our appellate tribunal for trade mark cases known as quaintly as "the > appointed person" Mr Jones concluded, not unreasonably, that "the > mark applied for will not be seen as a trade mark without first > educating the public that it is one." Accordingly the mark applied > for was devoid of any distinctive character and is thus excluded from > registration. > > If you are at all interested, you can find the transcript of Mr > Jones's decision at > > http://www.ipo.gov.uk/tm/t-decisionmaking/t-challenge/t-challenge-deci > sion-results/o17707.pdf > and a conolidated version of our Trade Marks Act 1994 at > http://www.ipo.gov.uk/tmact94.pdf > > Anything like this from anyone else's jurisdiciton?