New UK IPO practice note clarifies ‘Marco Polo’ decision
A new Tribunal Practice Notice (TPN) has been issued concerning contentious proceedings affecting UK trade marks and designs which do not have a valid UK address for service, that is, an address for service in the UK, Gibraltar or Channel Islands.
The TPN is particularly relevant to UK rights acquired through the International routes (Madrid Protocol and Hague Agreement).
The TPN is in response to the decision of the Appointed Person (Geoffrey Hobbs KC) in the “Marco Polo” case - Tradeix Ltd v New Holland Ventures Pty Ltd (BL O/681/22) In Marco Polo the Appointed Person found that posting documents to non-UK addresses under the UK IPO’s previous practice, may not have constituted valid service of those documents.
Following Marco Polo the UK IPO suspended a number of cases potentially affected by the decision. Now that the TPN has issued those cases are expected to become live again.