Trade Mark History

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Introduction
The first trade mark registry was established in 1875 under Trade mark Registration Act. Bass & Co was the first to register a label that bearing the famous red triangle for their pale ale. It is still registered as a trade mark today. The trade mark continue to develop. Today, Trade Mark Act 1994 (TMA) is the main statue that deals with trade marks within UK. The 1994 Act is primarily intended to implement the First Council Directive 89/104/EEC of 21st December 1988 (TMD) that aims to approximate the laws of Member States relating to trade marks, the Act makes provision for the Community Trade Mark (CTM) and enabled UK to give effect to the 1989 Madrid Protocol relating to the international registration of trade marks. The opportunity was also taken to make some much needed improvements to trade marks.

The basic definition of a ‘trade mark’ is given by s.1 (1) of the 1994 Trade Marks Act, the definition is relatively straightforward. It defines ‘trade mark’ as ‘any sign capable of being represented graphically which is capable of distinguishing goods or services of one undertaking from those of another’. As a result, if the trade mark owner notice that there are people who infringe their trade mark, they may pursue legal action against trademark infringement.

In defining what will amount to an infringement under the TMA, it also indirectly defines the scope of the rights that are given to the trade mark owner. By referring to section 10 of the 1994 Act, it establishes the basic criteria for an infringement action. It is written to accord with the provision of Art 5 of TMD, which, is designed to prevent the concurrent use of duplicate or similar marks. If a mark is already on the Trade Marks Register, it is...

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...elected.
As these diver¬gences in court / IP author¬i¬ties’ prac¬tices may lead to dif¬fer¬ent scopes of pro¬tec¬tion in dif¬fer¬ent mem¬ber states, a clar¬i¬fy¬ing deci¬sion of the CJEU is desirable.

Con¬clu¬sion
The rel¬e¬vant EU acts pre¬vented trade¬mark and design rights from being use to obtain monop¬o¬ly on technical apparel solution with¬out complying with the rigorous con¬di¬tions laid down in patent law. While CJEU laid down the guidelines for these trade¬mark pro¬vi¬sions, however the CJEU has not given guidelines on how the cor-re¬spond¬ing pro¬vi¬sions on design rights are to be interpreted. Trade¬marks and Design rights arguably are pow¬er¬ful tools, but own¬ers of such rights should be aware of the range of pro¬tec¬tion given or such rights to be brought to their atten¬tion, in par¬tic¬u¬larly to avoid the sudden unpleasant collision of cases.

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