October 2024 News

Large or small - we're here to help

We had a new enquiry recently, from the owner of a new business who had filed their own trade mark application and who had received the ominous-sounding ‘notice of threatened opposition’, aka ‘form TM7A’ from the UK Trade Marks Registry.  To make things just a bit more scary, the threatened opponent was a multi-billion-dollar business, versus a company founded a few months ago and run in the clients spare time.  The client was worried, and contacted us at half seven in the morning after finding my contact details via my professional association’s website. 
 
We weren’t worried.  The other side do not have a good case.  By 6pm that evening we had sent a pre-emptive letter to the other side, analysing their trade mark portfolio and concluding that there was no reasonable argument of similarity.  The client was very relieved, and has given me permission to quote him:
 
Thank you, for all of your help, and for doing everything so quickly. You really do look out for the small business.
 
That made my evening.  And my client had a point – we do love these cases, where a substantial firm needs to be taken down a notch after it decides to flex its intellectual-property muscles a little beyond their reasonable scope, often in the apparent expectation that the little business will back down.  We’ve seen several instances where a major brand has been set up around a dictionary word, and needs to be reminded that its dictionary meaning is still there… and that people are entitled to use it even if they don’t like that.  There’s a lesson here, and its that if you want an absolute monopoly over a word, then you need to invent a new one.
 
But in thinking it over, I realised that we don’t just help out the small guys.  We also have a nice line in developing IP portfolios for substantial companies.  Looking back, we’ve helped:
 

• The world’s leading supplier of radiotherapy apparatus; over 20 years we helped them as they improved the accuracy of their treatment systems by an order of magnitude, making it possible to treat tumours that had previously been untreatable.  Their inventions ranged from engineering changes to the apparatus, to new methodologies and algorithms for planning and delivering the treatment embodied in their operating software.  We protected them all and help them stay at the forefront.
   
• The inventors of the first cochlear implants; over their lives they have enabled deafness to be eliminated in any country with a first-world healthcare system, and built up a multinational company to produce and supply their implants.  Also world leaders in their field, they were finalists for the European Patent Office’s ‘Inventor of the Year’ award in the ‘lifetime achievement’ category. 
   
• An internationally-famous designer of Formula 1 and road cars, who came to us with a revolutionary approach to the design of vehicle chassis structures, able to improve the car’s efficiency and/or performance.  We’ve spent 15 years building up a comprehensive patent portfolio around the technology and its implementation, trade mark protection for the various brands involved in communicating its value, and design protection around the cars that implement it.
   
• One of the world’s finest and longest-standing Hi-Fi audio suppliers came to me 20 years ago because a competitor was suing them for design infringement.  The case was clearly without any merit and we resolved it in under a year.  They’ve stayed with me since, and we’ve helped them stay at the forefront by protecting the steady flow of ideas they’ve had to improve the sound quality of their systems.  Their attention to detail is truly inspiring, and explaining that to patent examiners has been a joy. 

 
So yes… large or small, we’re here to help. 

Until next time.

Best Wishes

Michael

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