In our latest article for the Wolters Kluwer trade mark blog, Jixuan Si analyses a trade mark dispute between  ABP Technology and Voyetra Turtle Beach who were both using highly similar/identical marks (STEALTH) on identical goods.

The key takeaway is that purchasing an older registration and carefully ensuring it is not vulnerable to non-use cancellation is not an abuse of process. It is likely that such tactics will become more and more popular. Whilst there is an argument that by analogy to the Lindt decision (C-529/07), acquiring registrations with the sole purposes of blocking another party’s use amount to bad faith and should invalidate the registrations, there are too many differences to make counter-arguments that Lindt decision is not applicable (e.g. 3D mark vs word mark, blocking another party’s use vs validating their own use and defending an infringement claim). It nonetheless indicates that the current law must be changed first in order to address this issue.

You can read the full article here.