Friday July 17th 2009, by Piers Strickland
Companies who wish to protect their brands which subsist in their actual company names now have another option when there is such an opportunistic application for a new company name: they can make an application to the Company Names Tribunal (an adjunct to the UK’s intellectual property office – which manages the UK’s trade mark register).
COMMENT: Such an application costs an initial fee of £400. As such, this should prove to be a potentially cost-effective method of addressing nuisance trade mark disputes / issues arising from the register of companies. Certainly the cost will compare very favorably compared to using the courts to issue trade mark infringement proceedings.
However, one point to note is that if the new company name application at issue is not opportunistic, then an application should be made to Companies House, rather than the Company Names Tribunal,
Further information about the Company Names Tribunal can be found on http://www.ipo.gov.uk/cna.htm.
