Tagged: Trade marks

ZIMA tomato trade mark far from rotten

Case note written by Peter Heerey AM, QC, Tom Cordiner & Alan Nash. In Mastronardi Produce Ltd v Registrar of Trade Marks [2014] FCA 1021 (19 September 2014) Justice Gordon has overturned a decision of the Registrar to reject the mark ZIMA in respect of tomatoes.

Trade mark owner successfully runs a claim for additional damages up the pole

Written by Peter Heerey AM, QC, Tom Cordiner & Alan Nash. In Vertical Leisure Limited & Anor v Skyrunner Pty Ltd & Anor [2014] FCCA 2033 (5 September 2014), the Federal Circuit Court has extended the record by awarding $300k in additional damages for infringement of Vertical Leisure’s X-POLE mark registered for pole-dancing poles. Vertical Leisure is the Australian and international market leader in respect of such products.

Failures to change corporate names and deliver up infringing material leads to fines for contempt

Late last year, the Federal Court ordered that the fourth respondent, Bob Jane, and the companies he controlled, be restrained from trading as a business under any name that is or includes the word JANE. The corporate respondents were also ordered to forthwith change their names, transfer certain domain names and deliver up promotional material to Bob Jane Corporation. Early this year, Bob Jane Corporation brought charges of contempt of court against each of Bob Jane and various of the corporate respondents he controlled for failure to comply with those orders. Bob Jane Corporation sought a declaration of guilt and imposition of a fine in relation to each alleged contempt.

Telstra sees red over rejection of YELLOW trade mark

Co-authored by Peter Heerey AM QC, Tom Cordiner and Alan Nash. These were two appeals from decisions by delegates of the Registrar to allow registration by Telstra of the mark YELLOW in respect of, among other things, online and print phone directories. Each of the applicants (respectively PDCA and Yellowbook) was unsuccessful in opposing Telstra’s application before the Registrar. Yellowbook also appealed the delegate’s decision to allow Telstra’s opposition to Yellowbook’s own application for YELLOWBOOK for the same goods and services. Murphy J dismissed all three appeals.

2 years gaol for contempt

Failure to comply with an injunction not to infringe someone’s intellectual property right is not only an infringement of that intellectual property right but also a contempt of court. The sanctions for contempt of court are many including, potentially, fines and imprisonment – even in intellectual property cases. The Full Federal Court has confirmed that imprisonment was the appropriate sanction for Mr Vladimir Vaysman’s repeated breaches of injunctions not to infringe trade mark and copyright, but reduced the sentence from 3 years to 2 years.