A new & improved patents county court?

Many of the proposals to reform the junior Intellectual Property Court of England and Wales (the Patents County Court) put forward by the Intellectual Property Court Users Committee last year will come into effect on 1 October 2010.

Specsavers v Asda - UK court focuses on Asda's unfair advantage taking (but provides no clear view on how to establish trade mark infringement by dilution)

Specsavers has successfully established that Asda infringed its community trade mark for the word "SPECSAVERS" by Asda's use of the tag line "Be a real spec saver at Asda" during its 2009 campaign to promote its in-store opticians.

EPCs and DECs - more changes ahead

A new EU Directive has now been passed and must be brought into effect in the UK by 9 January 2013, although the government has hinted that certain changes may be implemented sooner. Find out what this means for you and your business.

Coalition Watch - edition 2

Welcome to the second edition of the Public Law & Regulation team's Coalition Watch alert series.

Maker of VODKAT fails to convince Court of Appeal that extended passing off is now too broad

The Court of Appeal has upheld the High Court judgment that Intercontinental Brands (ICB) passed off its VODKAT product as vodka and this caused, or was likely to cause, damage to Diageo, manufacturer of the SMIRNOFF brand of vodka.