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United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions >> BYTESIZE (Trade Mark: Opposition) [2001] UKIntelP o55301 (12 December 2001)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIntelP/2001/o55301.html
Cite as: [2001] UKIntelP o55301
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BYTESIZE (Trade Mark: Opposition) [2001] UKIntelP o55301 (12 December 2001)
For the whole decision click here: o55301
Trade mark decision
- BL Number
- O/553/01
- Decision date
- 12 December 2001
- Hearing officer
- Mr D Landau
- Mark
- BYTESIZE
- Classes
- 18, 25, 41
- Applicants
- Viacom International Inc
- Opponents
- The British Broadcasting Corporation
- Opposition
- Section 5(4)(a)
Result
Section 5(4)(a) - Opposition partially successful
Points Of Interest
- 1. Claim to increased protection by reason of potential of merchandising use
- 2. Costs to applicants in view of the breadth of the opponents’ attack
Summary
On a preliminary point, the Hearing Officer decided, not without ‘some misgivings’ to take into account some exhibits which had not been copied to the other side.
In the substantive matter, the opponent claimed to have established a goodwill in the mark BITESIZE. After a careful examination of this claim, however, the Hearing Officer considered any possible damage was limited to a common field of activity, ie some, only, of the services in the Class 41 specifications.
He ordered that the Class 41 specification be reduced accordingly. Since this was only a very limited success, given the breadth of the opponents’ attack, the Hearing Officer made an award of costs to the applicants.