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Intellectual Property Law

: IPKat

Absolute Power

By Johanna Gibson, David Pearce, Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon.

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Don't spill alcohol on your radio.

V&S Vin & Spirit, the proprietor of Absolut (the trade mark of Swedish vodka) has commenced proceedings against the rebranded Virgin Radio, Absolute Radio.

As well as the vodka trade mark V&S owns the Absolut Tracks music project, and claims Virgin Radio is infringing its trade mark and passing its services off as those of V&S. A spokeswoman for V&S stated, "The reason for this is that we consider there is a risk of confusion. We have a well known brand and there is an obvious risk of confusion between Absolut vodka and Absolute Radio. We have filed a complaint and now we go into the legal process."

The reason for the change of name from Virgin Radio to Absolute Radio was the sale of the business to the Times of India for Ł53.2 million in June, where the ownership of the Virgin mark was retained by Richard Branson and the new proprietors announced the re-branding as Absolute Radio (as part of its new management company, Absolute Radio International). (At right: the Absolute Radio public blog, absolutely no help at all).

Can listeners tell the difference between a vodka brand and a radio brand? Merpel suggests it depends on how much vodka.

Full post as published by IPKat on October 12, 2008 (boomark / email).