The High Court refused Marie Claire Netherlands B.V. leave to appeal to the Supreme Court over an earlier judgment in a trade mark dispute, finding that none of the nine proposed points qualified as a point of law for appeal.
Mr Justice Barrett delivered the ruling on 21 July 2014. The application arose under section 79(3) of the Trade Marks Act 1996, which permits an appeal from a High Court decision to the Supreme Court on a specified point of law, with the High Court’s leave.
The underlying case concerned opposition to registration of the MARIE CLAIRE mark for clothing and headgear. In its earlier judgment, the High Court had decided the opposition on the basis of passing off under section 10(4) of the Act. In this application, Marie Claire Netherlands sought to challenge aspects of that decision, including the treatment of use of the mark, whether clothing had been sold, and the evidence and inferences concerning goodwill, reputation, misrepresentation and damage.
Justice Barrett said several proposed points were criticisms of the earlier court’s findings of fact or of the weight given to evidence, rather than questions of law. He said another proposed point about the test for passing off raised no unsettled legal issue, referring to the Supreme Court’s decision in McCambridge Ltd. v. Joseph Brennan Bakeries. The court also said the earlier judgment had applied the legal principles identified in that case.
On the proposed appeal points concerning ownership of goodwill, the judge noted that the earlier judgment had found the opposing parties had “significant and valuable goodwill in Ireland” and the necessary goodwill to ground a passing-off action. Those findings had been made on the evidence, despite the plaintiff’s submissions about goodwill.
The court’s decision was limited to whether leave should be granted on the proposed points. It declined leave on all nine. The ruling did not determine a new trade mark registration application or rehear the underlying dispute.