March 26, 2009

The EU Registry recently announced a fee reduction from €1,600 for an online application and registration in 3 classes to €900. A draft Regulation is currently being prepared for adoption by the Commission, following which it will be ...

March 29, 2009

Generally it is easier for inventors or others who have a patentable invention to find sources of funding than it is to find funding purely for intellectual property protection.  However, that being said there are also grants availabl...

April 3, 2009

We are alarmed by the increasing number of scammers that target trade mark applicants in the UK and the EU.  Clearly some people are misled into paying the fees otherwise the scams would not continue as they do.

The scammers send unso...

April 7, 2009

Whether you want to include just the bare minimum information that the law requires you to display on your website, or appreciate that more extensive information will increase trust in your site, a useful starting point is to know what...

April 13, 2009

In a blog post earlier this year I mentioned how we were being charged £15 by HSBC for transferring funds to OHIM in respect of our clients’ European Union trade mark fees, only to suddenly find we were being charged a further 20 or s...

April 14, 2009

Domain names are an important aspect of branding.  When registering domain names people often wonder which domains to buy.  Some advisers advocate buying the sucks.com version of your brand to protect against aggrieved consumers who m...

April 21, 2009

I attended a talk recently which was advocating book writing as a way to promote ones personal brand.  Then the speaker said:  “Some people are reluctant to write about their area of expertise because they fear they might be giving aw...

April 30, 2009

Continental Wine & Food Limited has applied to register the mark TWITTER for beer, wine and other alcoholic drinks;  Can they do this?

As a general rule trade marks are granted for particular activities – that is, classes. So you ind...

May 7, 2009

Keyword advertising earns search engines an essential stream of revenue.

Google and Yahoo, who allow use of competitors’ brands as keywords in pay per click advertising, have both had to defend their position in the courts across Europe...

May 12, 2009

What is a scam?  According to the consumer fraud reporting “A confidence trick, confidence game, or con for short (also known as a scam) is an attempt to intentionally mislead a person or persons …. usually with the goal of financial or...

May 15, 2009

Interest in this matter was heightened when the Ipkat took it up here.  Many people got in touch, and some have apparently contacted CTMFS directly to complain about the misleading nature of the pro forma invoices their clients receive....

May 23, 2009

When I wrote the postscript about the Community Trade Mark Filing Service, I assumed that would be the end of it. Obviously I had not understood Mr Evans. Having now received a solicitors’ letter in which they have even attempted to fri...