NIPC Law

  Jane Lambert Court of Appeal (Lords Justices Coulson, Arnold and Zacaroli) easyGroup Ltd v Easy Live (Services) Ltd and others [2025] EWCA Civ 946 (24 July 2025) This was an appeal by easyGroup Ltd ("easyGroup")  against the order of Mr Nicolas Caddick KC of 17 Sept 2024 dismissing that company's claims for trade mark infringement and a declaration of invalidity against Easy Live (Services) Ltd. ("ELS") for the reasons set out in his judgment in easyGroup Ltd v Easy Live (Services) Ltd and others [2024] EWHC 2282 (Ch) (4 Sept 2024).  There was also a cross-appeal against Mr Caddick's dismissal of ELS's counterclaim for revocation of one of the claimant's trade marks for non-use.  I discussed Mr Caddick's judgment in  Trade Marks - easyGroup Ltd v Easy Live (Services) Ltd .  on 10 Sept 2024.   The Variant Forms Issue One of Lord Justice Arnold's reasons for permitting both the appeal and cross-appeal was that Mr Caddick's conclusion o...

  Jane Lambert Court of Appeal (Lord Justices Coulson, Arnold and Zacaroli)   easyGroup Ltd v Easyfundraising Ltd and others [2025] EWCA Civ 1000 (24 July 2025) This note should be read in conjunction with  Trade Marks and Passing off - easyGroup Ltd v Easyfundraising Ltd  which I published on 23 Sep 2024 in  NIPC Law .  In that note, I discussed Mr Justice Fancourt's judgment in  easyGroup Ltd v Easyfundraising Ltd and others  [2024] EWHC 2323 (Ch) (11 Sep 2024).  In the ante-penultimate paragraph, I noted that Mr Justice Fancourt's judgment had raised an issue over "variant forms" within the meaning of  s.46 (2)  of the Trade Marks Act 1994 that had to be resolved by the Court of Appeal.  The Variant Forms Issue I anticipated an appeal because the same issue had arisen in easyGroup Ltd v Easy Live (Services) Ltd and others [2024] EWHC 2282 (Ch) (4 Sept 2024), which I blogged in Trade Marks - easyGroup Ltd v Easy Live (Serv...

Nucleus of 103P/Hartley as imaged during a spacecraft flyby Author NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD  Licence Public Domain  Source Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert Patents Court (Michael Tappin KC)  Thaler v The Comptroller -General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks [2025] EWHC 2202 (Ch) (1 Sept 2025) DABUS stands for "Device for Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience".  According to its creator, Stephen Thaler , DABUS invented a new kind of food or beverage container and a new kind of light beacon and a new way of attracting attention in an emergency. Dr Thaler has tried to obtain patents for DABUS's inventions but he has not had much success outside South Africa. That is because most of the world's intellectual property offices , including our own, require an inventor to be a natural person.  I have written a lot of articles about DABUS and Dr Thaler's patent applications.  Readers are referred to Artificial Intelligence -The DABUS Decisions ,...