Herbert Smith Freehills has published a new global guide on supply chain difficulties arising from the COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions and solutions. Supply chain difficulties are at the heart of the pressures facing businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. In our latest guide we look at supply chain pressure points and what is being and … Read more

Sky has succeeded in its claim of infringement by SkyKick of its SKY trade mark, though suffers some collateral damage in having parts of certain of its trade mark registrations found invalid for being filed in bad faith.   Whilst the decision shows that the English Courts are prepared to strike down parts of wide trade … Read more

The CJEU has concluded that factors in addition to the graphic representation of a sign could be relevant to the assessment of whether a sign consisted exclusively of the shape of goods which was necessary to get a technical result. Further, the fact that a sign was protected by other intellectual property rights, such as … Read more

The UK Government has issued an indemnity in relation to claims brought against the manufacturers of new ventilators produced to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK as part of the Government’s campaign for rapidly manufactured ventilator systems (RMVS).  A letter from Michael Gove MP to the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee (3 April) confirms … Read more

As COVID-19 infiltrates every aspect of our daily lives and the world races to respond and to address the pandemic, there is a consistent theme which offers all of us hope. Collaboration. To combat the outbreak, we have seen the emergence of large numbers of companies joining to pool their resources and to cross-share their valuable know-how. Read more

On Saturday (4 April 2020) the UK Government issued a press release on how the medicines and medical devices regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), is investigating the increasing number of bogus medical products being sold through unauthorised websites claiming to treat or prevent COVID-19 cases of fake or unlicensed COVID-19 medical … Read more

Whilst as a global community we have witnessed extreme acts of kindness, compassion and camaraderie since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, regrettably, some have sought to exploit the crisis. From sales of counterfeits, mis-substitution of products and misleading advertising, to reverse engineering and cyber attacks, intellectual property (IP) rights holders are amongst the many … Read more

In a decision published today, the Court of Justice of the European Union has found that Amazon is not liable for unwittingly stocking trade mark infringing goods by third-party sellers (Coty v Amazon C-567/18). The decision means a rejection of the concept of extending liability of platforms, such as Amazon, for direct trade mark infringement … Read more