Becky Knott gave a talk (21st November) on the hot off the press judgment in Sky v SkyKick at The Chartered Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys’ Seminar for Litigators.

Becky looked at the impact of the Supreme Court’s judgment, providing some key takeaways for practitioners. An assessment of bad faith can now take into account the size and width of a specification as against the size and nature of the proprietor’s business, the rationale for making the application, the proprietor’s previous enforcement strategy, and conduct in pleadings.

While the impact on drafting trade mark applications may be low (as bad faith does not infect the remainder of a specification) this decision is likely to have a material impact on contentious strategies.