Managing IP quotes Charlotte Duly on the Supreme Court SkyKick ruling
In a case that has had its fair share of twists and turns, SkyKick v Sky finally landed in the UK’s Supreme Court last week.
Described by lawyers as “one of the most important UK trademark cases in years”, it is anticipated that the outcome may ultimately define the UK’s post-Brexit position on ‘bad faith’—generally defined as a lack of genuine intention on the part of the trademark owner to use the registered mark.
Charlotte Duly, Partner and Head of Brand Protection, who observed the hearing, told Managing IP she had sympathy for SkyKick’s position but warned of potential “chaos” in the trademark system if the cloud computing firm were to win.
She comments:
“I can see how cluttered the trademark register is, but the solution isn’t to retrospectively find bad faith where there probably isn’t any.
“If we say it’s bad faith to file a specification that is too broad, where do we draw that line?
“We could be opening up a new line of attack to cancel registrations prior to the end of the five-year non-use period."
Read the full article in Managing IP here (paywalled).
