Complaints to the Company Names Tribunal - An Introduction to the Key Issues & Possible Pitfalls

Introduction

Although already established for 12 years, the purpose and powers of the Company Names Tribunal are sometimes not very well understood.

This new webinar will provide you with an insight into the merits of filing complaints with the Company Names Tribunal, the possible pitfalls, and an understanding of how to anticipate and navigate issues that may arise during the complaint process.

The webinar is aimed at private practitioners and in-house counsel and will provide an introduction to the Company Names Tribunal complaint procedure.

What You Will Learn

This webinar will cover the following:

• Why file a complaint? What problems can a successful complaint remedy?
• Relationship between a complaint and passing-off and TM infringement actions
• Criteria for filing a complaint
• What level of goodwill is required?
• Compare to reputation
• Who owns the goodwill?
• Is the procedure just for owners of well-known names?
• Is trade mark registration a pre-requisite?
• What constitutes a similar name?
• Merits of giving advance notice of the complaint
• Joining directors to proceedings
• Consolidating complaints
• Filing evidence
• Defences available to the company
• Relevance of dates
• What is good faith?
• Will trade be diverted?
• Was the main purpose of registering the company name to block the applicant registering the name?
• Was the main purpose of registering the company name to obtain money/other consideration from the applicant?
• Recovery of costs

This webinar was recorded on 7th October 2021