Intellectual Property Law

Friday thingie

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

The IPKat's friend Mustafa Safiyuddin (DSK Legal, Mumbai) has been telling him all about a recent Bombay High Court decision, Parle Products Pvt. Ltd v Parle Agro Pvt. Ltd, which drew a distinction between a house mark and a product identification mark. The plaintiffs and the defendants, family concerns that shared a common ancestor, were known as belonging to the 'Parle group of companies' or 'the house of Parle'. The plaintiffs, who registered PARLE in Class 30 (biscuits and confectionery), used PARLE on their products as a house mark together with a distinctive and prominently-displayed product identification mark. The defendants, who registered PARLE for beverages in Class 32, used PARLE as a house mark for those goods together a prominently displayed product identification mark. After many years, the defendants diversified into the confectionery business, still using PARLE as a house mark on their packaging together with prominent product identification marks like MINTROX and BUTTERCUP. Facing an action for trade mark infringement and passing-off, the defendants contended that, having regard to the manner in which Parle has been used by both companies, the public always associated PARLE with 'house of Parle' or 'Parle group of companies', not with any particular entity within the Parle group. This being so, there was neither confusion nor likelihood of it among the consuming public: their use of PARLE as a house mark ?stated no more than the truth?. Mustafa acted for the victorious defendants.

The now fabled Opinion of Advocate General Mengozzi in Case C-487/07 L'Oréal SA v Bellure (see IPKat posts here and here) is now available in the original Italian. Thanks, Andrea Tosato, for letting the Kats know.

Right: if you think that this spaghetti takes some untangling, try reading paragraph 84 of the AG's Opinion.

While on the subject of that Opinion, here's a fun competition. We've had two AGs' Opinions this week: one in Case C-487/07 (see previous item) and one in Case C-5/08 Infopaq (noted here), which discusses whether the storage and subsequent printing out of 11 words was a 'reproduction'.  Putting the two together, the competition is to summarise Advocate General Mengozzi's Opinion in Case C-487/07 in just 11 words.   The prize? Complimentary admission to the excellent one-day conference on Domains, Domain Disputes and Brands, chaired by the dynamic Shireen Smith and taking place on 25 March in Central London.  Entries to the IPKat here, please, quoting "Eleven Words" in the subject line.

An entire tribe of IPKat Guardian readers (IPGrauniKats?), led by the intrepid Tracy McManus, Jon L and Hugo Cox, has sent him this link to the news that intellectual property rights in the famous Maori haka war dance, the Ka Mate, have been given to Ngati Toa, a North Island New Zealand tribal group. The IPKat has no objection to this group being control over the dance in order to prevent the often offensive or trivialised unauthorised exploitations made of it by those who are insensitive to its cultural significance to the Ngati Toa. He just wishes that some term which is more apt than "intellectual property" could be found for rights of this nature.

From longstanding reader Simon Haslam (Abel & Imray) comes this link to news that, now that peace has broken out among the various interested members of the late Bob Marley's family, it is now possible to pay for a licence to use the name and image of the cosmic reggae star. This will doubtless come as a grave disappointment to those many entrepreneurs whose dedication to Marley was so great that they just helped themselves to the use of his name without making any payments at all.  Apparently, trade in unauthorised Bob Marley goods and services is worth a thumping US$400 million, almost as much as a banker's bonus ...

Full post as published by IPKat on February 13, 2009 (boomark / email).