With the rise in copycats, many businesses know the importance of protecting their reputation, branding, and best-known products through trademarks. Mega Corporations such as Mattel, Marks and Spencer and Microsoft to name a few, spend millions protecting and marketing their brands.
Trademark disputes can last years, between 2006-2011 there was a doll fight like no other, both Mattel (the makers of Barbie) and MGA Entertainment spent millions of dollars fighting over the rights to the bestselling dolls with a known passion for fashion ‘Bratz’.
The proceedings started over who developed the Bratz concept, with Mattel arguing that the dolls designer, Carter Bryant (Owner of MGA Entertainment) developed the Bratz concept whilst he was working for Mattel in the late 1990’s. The original trial awarded $100 million in damages to Mattel and awarded them the Bratz concept. However, an appeal in 2010 distinguished the original decision as it had failed to consider all the development that had gone into the Bratz line after Mr Bryant’s original creation. Mattel were ordered to pay $88.4 million to MGA Entertainment.
There are brands, notably the supermarket Aldi, that make a name being ‘copycats’ to companies with registered trademarks. Aldi caused a social media storm with Colin the Caterpillar v Cuthbert the Caterpillar. Marks and Spencer issued infringement proceedings on Aldi as there copy-caterpillar, Cuthbert had a similar name and had many design features that where the same or similar to Colin. The battle of these two caterpillars was settled outside of court, however it was not long until a new set of trademark infringement proceedings were issued against Aldi by Marks and Spencer. The proceedings were over similarities between Marks and Spencer’s registered design of gin-based liqueur bottles . At court Marks and Spencer argued that the Aldi bottles were remarkably similar and did not create a different overall impression from the registered designs on members of the public. The Court agreed with Marks and Spencer’s argument. The Mattel v MGA Entertainment and Marks and Spencer v Aldi cases show the importance and value in trademarks.
When creating a new mark, its essential to ensure that its distinctive from other goods and services on the market, otherwise it can open the door to numerous prospective trademark infringement cases. This is a possibility for the social media network formerly known as Twitter after it recently rebranded to X.
Trademarking a single letter can be difficult, as they are often too short to be distinctive which makes it difficult to prevent others from using a similar mark and could create confusion with marks of other goods and services. When creating a trademark, you want a mark capable of represented graphically and which can distinguish the goods and services of one person to those of another. A trademark is a name, concept or design may be protected for 10 years which are renewable indefinitely by registration.
The letter ‘X’ is trademarked 900 times in the ‘scientific, technology and design services’ category. This is one of 45 categories of goods and services that can be trademarked in the UK. A few examples of other mega corporations that have the letter X trademarked include Microsoft with Xbox and Excel, Meta with MetaX, ITV with ITVX and Sky with SkyX.
If any of the mega corporations listed above think that social media platform ‘X’ has caused an infringement on their own trademark it could lead to several expensive legal proceedings against the social media platform.
Trademarks registered in the UK are also protected in the Isle of Man under The UK Trade Mark Act 1994 subject to modifications made by the Trade Marks (Isle of Man) Order 2013. *
If you wish to discuss the situation further then please contact the Commercial team at Callin Wild.
* The UK Trade Mark Act 1994 subject to modifications made by the Trade Marks (Isle of Man) Order 2013
