INTA is the worlds largest trade mark organisation.
Approximately 10,000 individuals from law firms and trade mark owners around the globe attend its annual meeting. Every few weeks INTA chooses to publish a profile of just two of the many thousands of individuals who participate in the association’s activities. This month they chose Waterfront partner Matthew Harris.
Matthew’s profile can be found here.
Matthew has been involved in the various activities of INTA for over 14 years. When on the association’s internet committee, he drafted INTA’s comments on the .eu domain name regime. From 2004 to 2010 he was the UK contributor to The Trademark Reporter International Review, and from 2007 was appointed one of its editors. In recent years he has served on the European Amicus Sub-Committee, being appointed its chairman from 2009 to 2011. Work in that latter role including drafting submissions to Russia’s highest trade mark court and appearing on behalf of the association before the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg in the Nokia case.
When asked what he thought about his profile, Matthew responded:
“I am honoured to have been chosen. However, I am not sure that ‘beer swilling history nerd’ is quite the image I am trying to foster.”
The current legal framework in the UK does not allow copying of copyright-protected material for training generative AI models, except where it is carried out with permission of the copyright owner or done in a research or study context and for purely non-commercial purposes.
This matter deals with the Claimant’s (‘TVIS’) allegation of infringement and misrepresentation in relation to its “VETSURE” trade mark by the Defendant (‘Howserv’s’) “PETSURE” trade mark, used for pet insurance. In the first instance decision, the claim was dismissed due to the marks being highly descriptive and “not…