Trade mark decision

BL Number

O/197/03

Decision date

7 July 2003

Hearing officer

Mr David Kitchin QC

Mark

INLEX

Classes

40

Applicant for Invalidity

Henkel KGAA

Registered Proprietor

Inlex Locking Limited

Invalidity

1. Section 47(1) based on Sections 3(1)(a) & (1)(1), 3(1)(b), 3(1)(c) & 3(1)(d).

Result

Request to be allowed to filed additional evidence: Request refused.

Points Of Interest

• 1. See Hearing Officers decision dated 19 August 2002 (BL O/344/02).
• 2. Appeal to the Appointed Person refused. See Appointed Person’s decision dated 23 March 2004 (BL O/076/04).

Summary

The registered proprietors appealed the Hearing Officer’s decision of 19 August 2002 (BL O/344/02) to the Appointed Person and also made an application to file further evidence.

The additional evidence was said to relate to three matters:

(a) That use by another firm called Ionic which appeared to influence the Hearing Officer’s decision, was in fact use by the predecessor in business.

(b) That the registered proprietors and Ionic were the exclusive licensed users of the mark in suit.

(c) That the Hearing Officer had doubted that Mr Bliss (an expert witness) was in a position to speak for the industry as a whole.

As regards (a) the Appointed Person noted that this fact was in the original evidence and thus before the Hearing Officer. It was open to the registered proprietor on appeal to argue that the Hearing Officer wrongly disregarded this evidence. As regards (b) the licensed agreement provided was of no assistance since the mark in suit was not mentioned and as regards (c) it was not open to the proprietors to seek to improve their original evidence at this late stage. The Appointed Person thus refused the request to be allowed to file additional evidence.