In the third (and final) of our blogs reporting on the UK Court of Appeal decision in Lidl v Tesco, we examine the findings in relation to non-use revocation.

At first instance, the judge found that certain trade mark registrations filed by Lidl in 1995, 2002, 2005 and 2007 for its ‘logo without text’ were all filed in bad faith – on the principle that Lidl was avoiding potential non-use revocation by way of ‘evergreening’. These logos had been filed at regular intervals with a duplicated specification of goods and services.

However, Lidl’s 2021 registration was held to be in good faith on the basis that additional specification terms were added, and it was filed 14 years after Lidl’s previous application. 

Lidl argued that its current trade mark strategy ensures that filings reflect Lidl’s actual use and that this strategy must have been the same 20 years ago (but without evidence to support this). Lidl appealed the High Court’s findings of bad faith.  

Lucy Skelton and Emma Dixon explain more and unpack the judgment in a new article for the Wolters Kluwer Trade Mark Blog. You can read the full article here.