NIPC Law

Jane Lambert Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (Ms Amanda Michaels)   Madine and Another v Phillips and Others [2017] EWHC 3268 (IPEC) (13 Dec 2017)  Thelma Madine  makes wedding addresses.  According to Amanda Michaels, who tried an action that Mrs Madine brought against Miss Leanne Phillips and her mother Mrs Pauline Phillips, two of her former employees, for design right and copyright infringement and passing off, "the hallmark of her dress designs is their extravagance, not just in terms of the price of the gowns, but in terms of the size and weight of the skirts, which tend to have to be supported by hoops (like a crinoline), and the elaborate nature of the decoration applied to the dresses." Mrs Madine was featured in the Channel 4 documentary  My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding   which was broadcast some years ago. The Action One of Mrs Madine's customers was a bride who is referred to as "Delilah" in Miss Michael's judgment....

Jane Lambert In DKH Retail Ltd v H. Young (Operations) Ltd   the claimant, which claimed design rights and unregistered Community design in relation to the front portion and hood of a range of gilets sold under the product name Academy  under the Superdry brand  sued the defendant for importing and selling a range of Glaisdale gilets under the Animal brand . The defendant raised the usual defences on subsistence, ownership and infringement.  This case is interesting because it is the first judicial analysis of the effect of the deletion by s.1 (1) of the Intellectual Property Act 2014 of the words "any aspect of" from the definition of "design" in s.213 (2) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. I had discussed that deletion in "How the Intellectual Property Act 2014 will change British Unregistered Design Right Law"   11 June 2014 and "The Intellectual Property Bill 2013"   28 May 2013.  Even though ...