High Court: Intellectual Property Enterprise Court judgments, 2026

A patent claim is construed purposively, in context and as a whole, but ordinary words retain their ordinary meaning where no term of art is established. A…

A mark combining ordinary words is not descriptive merely because consumers can give it a natural literal meaning. Under Trade Marks Act 1994, the sign must be…

Trade mark infringement under the Trade Marks Act turns on the statutory conditions for identity or similarity, the relevant goods, confusion, reputation…

Damages for copyright infringement are compensatory, not punitive. A reasonable royalty is assessed by asking what willing licensor and licensee would have…

In a trade mark damages inquiry, lost profits may be awarded for sales displaced by infringement. A reasonable royalty may also be awarded for infringing sales…

A pleaded family of trade marks cannot be established merely by showing repeated use of a common word. The proprietor must prove that the relevant public…

Trade mark use is not merely informational where advertisements, prices and contact details would lead the average consumer to believe that the trader could…

In an inquiry as to damages for passing off, loss may be inferred from the available facts and reasonable assumptions may be made when assessing quantum. A…

A patent claim requiring a spacer to move between a position convenient for carrying or storage and a position determining a minimum distance does not, without…

On an application for summary judgment, the court must decide whether the claim has a realistic prospect of success without conducting a mini-trial. The court…

For trade mark infringement, the common presence of a descriptive word does not ordinarily establish similarity, a family of marks, or a likelihood of…

Registered trade marks are prima facie valid, so a party seeking invalidity or revocation bears the evidential burden. Descriptiveness and genericism must be…

An account of profits is unavailable as relief for an actionable threat of proceedings for infringement of a registered design. Section 26C of the Registered…

Copyright in a computer program protects the expression of the author’s intellectual creation, not the program’s functionality. The functionality includes what…