Trade mark decision

BL Number: O/032/02
Decision date: 17 January 2002
Hearing Officer: Mr M Knight
Mark: CB CHEQUE BLEAU
Classes: 36
Applicant for Revocation: CB Richard Ellis Inc
Registered Proprietor: Groupment Carte Bleu
Opposition: Award of costs

Result

Award of costs - Costs awarded from comptroller's scale of costs.

Points Of Interest

See Hearing Officer’s decision dated 7 November 2001 (BL O/586/01).

Summary

When the Hearing Officer issued his decision of 7 November 2001 in which he granted summary judgement to the applicants for revocation, he reserved the matter of costs and asked for written submissions. The registered proprietor filed no submissions but the applicants' representatives requested costs above the normal scale, arguing that the proprietor could not have had a genuine belief that it would be possible to defend the registrations. In their view there had been some abuse of process.

The Hearing Officer reviewed the papers and noted that the proprietor had instructed its representatives to file a defence and some evidence from the Internet had been filed together with written submissions. The fact that such evidence had been found wanting was not sufficient to claim abuse of process. The Hearing Officer went on to award costs from the Comptroller’s scale of costs with a small extra award of £300 to reflect the unusual nature of the issues.

Full decision O/032/02 11Kb