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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions >> NEPTUNE (Trade Mark: Invalidity) [2002] UKIntelP o33402 (13 August 2002)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIntelP/2002/o33402.html
Cite as: [2002] UKIntelP o33402
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NEPTUNE (Trade Mark: Invalidity) [2002] UKIntelP o33402 (13 August 2002)
For the whole decision click here: o33402
Trade mark decision
- BL Number
- O/334/02
- Decision date
- 13 August 2002
- Hearing officer
- Mrs S Long
- Mark
- NEPTUNE
- Classes
- 19, 27
- Applicant for Invalidity
- Floodskirt Ltd
- Registered Proprietor
- Malhou Textile KHM Kolsch GmbH & Co
- Invalidation
- Sections 47(1) & 3(6)
Result
Sections 47(1) & 3(6) - Invalidity action failed.
Points Of Interest
- None
Summary
The applicants for invalidity had applied for registration of their mark NEPTUNE in the UK and the mark in suit, which is an International Registration, was raised as a citation.
The applicants say that they have investigated the proprietors of the registered mark and discovered that in fact they had been liquidated and removed from the German company register in the year 2000. However, both the International mark and the German basis mark remain on the trade mark registers and are still valid. The applicants submit that the proprietors should have been aware that they were about to be liquidated when they filed their application and thus they could have had no intention to use their mark on the broad list of goods claimed.
The Hearing Officer accepted that in a case where no defence was provided by the proprietors the applicants did not need to fully substantiate their claims.
However, it was necessary to at least make out a prima facie case and they had not done so in this instance. In particular there was no evidence filed to show that the proprietors had no intention of using their mark when they made their application. Therefore the application under Section 3(6) must fail.