Trade mark decision

BL Number
O/004/06
Decision date
29 December 2005
Appointed Person
Professor Ruth Annand
Mark
AJIT WEEKLY
Classes
16
Applicant for Invalidation
Sadhu Singh Hamdard Trust
Registered Proprietor
Ajit Newspaper Advertising, Marketing & Communications Inc

Result

Section 47(1) based on Section 3(6): Invalidation successful.

Points Of Interest

  • The Appointed Person reviews the law relating to “bad faith” in considerable details and clarifies the fact that the decision in the TWINSECTRA case did not change the definition of what constituted “bad faith”.

Summary

This was an appeal to the Appointed Person of the Hearing Officer’s decision dated 3 February 2005 (BL O/030/05). In that decision the Hearing Officer had found in favour of the opponent under Section 3(6) but did not consider other grounds under Sections 5(2)(b) and 5(4)(a). On appeal the applicant claimed the decision under Section 3(b) was wrong and asked that the proceedings be resubmitted to the Registry for determination of the Sections 5(2)(b) and 5(4)(a) grounds. In the event this latter request was not pursued so the Appointed Person only had to deal with the Section 3(6) ground.

The Appointed Person reviewed the evidence filed in the proceedings and the Hearing Officer’s factual findings in considerable detail. She also considered the effect of recent Court of Appeal and House of Lords decisions as to what constitutes “bad faith”. Having concluded that the Hearing Officer’s findings of fact were justified the Appointed Person went on to support the Hearing Officer’s finding of “bad faith” under Section 3(6) and dismissed the appeal.

Full decision O/004/06 PDF document97Kb