Knowledge

03/05/16

Hell’s Angels attempt to pop Red Bubble

Hells Angels recently lodged a Federal Court action against Red Bubble, an online t-shirt retailer. The motorcycle club, which has a number of registered trade marks in Australia, including the words Hells Angels and the ‘death head’ logo, has sued the retailer, claiming that certain t-shirt designs and a poster offered for sale from the...

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Prince lives on, in his trade mark form

Just days before his death, a trade mark application lodged by Prince was approved for publication in the US. The application sought to protect the “Prince” name in classes 25 and 41, covering clothing and entertainment in the nature of live musical performances respectively. The application was filed by Paisley Park Enterprises, Prince’s primary business...

Google Books a win: Media giant wins epic copyright battle against Authors Guild

On Monday, a US Supreme Court decision ended an eleven year battle between Google and the US Authors Guild, under which the Authors Guild had claimed Google’s epic book scanning project breached copyright laws by scanning without permission. Google began the scanning process in 2004 with the intention of including extracts in a searchable database. ...

Trade Mark Vice – Vice Media takes on unsigned indie band ViceVersa

We bring you word of a new trade mark stoush – this time between Vice Media, a company valued at US$2.5 billion, and an unsigned indie band based in LA – ViceVersa. In November last year, the band’s application to have its name trade marked was accepted by the US Patent and Trademark Office. This...

Image rights – the debate continues post mortem

In both Australia and the UK, there is no such thing as an “image right” or “right of privacy” which allows a celebrity to control the use of his or her name or image. This was confirmed by the UK High Court in the Rihanna and Top Shop case[i]. Instead both UK and Australian courts rely...

Vetements won’t rain on Mr Tran’s parade

For those in the fashion know, Vetements is the darling of French fashion at the moment, having reinvigorated a sense of street in the industry, and one of its founders recently being named artistic director of Balenciaga. Vetements (meaning ‘clothes’ in French) is well known for its consistent use of third party trade marks in...

Not even “Steam” can hide from foreign Consumer Guarantees!

In Australia we have statutory guarantees for consumers under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) (Consumer Guarantees). These are designed to protect Australian consumers from being sold goods or services which are not of acceptable quality or are not fit for the purpose for which they were sold. Under the ACL, consumers are entitled to a...

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