Spring Conference 2025 – day two
Our delegates reconvened at the world-renowned Waldorf Hilton to resume networking and learning together – they were treated to a dive into reviving legacy brands as well as an update on copyright.
The Rt. Hon Lord Smith of Finsbury, Chair of IPReg was also on hand to provide some valuable insight into regulation of the profession in the UK and some of the challenges ahead.
Challenges for IPReg
Lord Smith is coming to the end of his six-year stint as Chair of IPReg. He used the opportunity to set out some of the key achievements and activity during that time alongside the key areas that he believes IPReg needs to do more work on.
Educational routes into the profession – “Ensuring that there are a new and better, a better choice of roots into the IP profession seems to me to be something we still need to work on. It's probably more acute for patent attorneys than it is for trade mark attorneys, but it applies to both,” he said.
Diversity of the profession – a recent diversity survey found that trade mark attorneys are more likely to be female, while patent attorneys more likely to be male. It also found that 43% of attorneys are the first generation of family to go to university.
A third of attorneys have caring responsibilities, Lord Smith told delegates – this includes caring for children and older family members. Lord Smith said that IPReg must make sure that regulatory requirements enable attorneys to take time out of work and come back while also still protecting the consumers who they are working for.
Artificial intelligence – IPReg needs to think about how it can mould the regulatory framework so that AI can be used for good purposes rather than bad, Lord Smith shared. We need to “put in place regulatory arrangements that enable attorneys to use AI for the best. This is coming down the track at us and we need to make sure that we are ready for it.”
Lord Smith concluded his talk with a few thoughts on the future.
“We have a government that is passionate about stimulating growth, if they really want to make sure that growth happens in an economy, they need to pay attention to the needs of IP.
“IP is the economic driver of growth. Enabling, treasuring and protecting IP is incredibly important for the future of the UK economy,” he said.
The essentials of legacy branding
This insightful session took delegates through everything there is to know about legacy branding, the practice of refreshing or reviving an old brand or a logo that was discontinued or abandoned several years ago.
With a focus on the legal considerations, Daniel Joy from Baker McKenzie took delegates through the challenges that might arise when handling legacy branding.
He listed three common scenarios that might come into play:
- Where the original owner, after a period of inactivity, wants to bring back their own legacy brand
- An unconnected, independent third party collaborates with the original owner to revive a legacy brand
- An independent third party wants to revive a legacy brand, but the owner doesn’t agree
Before wrapping up his section of the session, Daniel referenced a recent chocolate bar case, involving the registrations for Snickers and Marathon. In an attempt to keep the Marathon name alive on the UK register, the brand ran a limited-edition retro version of the Snickers chocolate bar under the Marathon name.
Daniel highlighted the importance of legacy branding in this case: “Registrations for Marathon would ultimately become vulnerable to non-use revocation if they weren't used and so these limited-edition runs capitalise on the nostalgia of their old brand but also have the effect of ensuring the mark doesn’t become vulnerable to non-use revocation.”
Ese Akpogheneta from BAT then delved into some primary examples of iconic brands that have been revived over the years, with varying levels of success. This included the successful comeback of high street favourite, Woolworths. After filing for bankruptcy, the retailer maintained the brand and was later acquired and relaunched as an online retailer in Germany, with talks of a revival in the UK, too.
In the case of Woolworths, Ese explained how they had harnessed the power of their heritage, leaning on the nostalgic value and positive memories it evokes to keep the brand alive.
Further to this, Ese emphasised the significance in connecting with consumers when it comes to legacy branding: “You need to do the work, and you need to get the buy in from consumers for it to actually work. Consumers are your biggest stakeholders, so if you don't get them on board, it can go incredibly wrong.”
What constitutes artistic craftmanship?
David Stone, White & Case LLP, took delegates through recent design and copyright cases and in particular focused on the point about what makes something a work of artistic craftmanship and therefore afforded copyright protection.
David pointed out that ‘work of artistic craftmanship’ had rarely been litigated, so there was limited case law.
The recent WaterRower IPEC case (WaterRower v Liking [2024] EWHC 2806 (IPEC)) in which WaterRower was not considered to be a work of artistic craftsmanship.
“Whilst it was a work of craftsmanship, it wasn't sufficiently artistic to be a work of artistic craftsmanship,” David noted. David also informed delegates that the case is unlikely to reach the Court of Appeal.
David looked at other cases where artistic work was a factor, and noted the control panel on an AGA attracted copyright thanks to its original CAD drawing.
The talk concluded with a reminder that EU design reforms now in force.
Thank you to Corsearch for its support of this event.