LOVELL'S LABOURS LOST?


Legal Week reports today that although London-based Lovells has won its acrimonious case against a Spanish lawyer over the use of the firm’s name in Spain, it now faces another two years of legal battles following the defendant’s decision to appeal. The Madrid Court of First Instance ruled late last year that the name of Manuel Rayo’s local firm, Lovell Abogados, was void as a trade mark and that it should cease using the name. However, any hopes Lovells had of ending the year-long fight for exclusive rights to the name were dashed when Rayo appealed against the judgment on 17 December. Lovells had to file its reply by Wednesday (2 February) before the Court of Appeal makes a ruling based on written submissions. Even if the court rules in favour of Lovells, Rayo is likely to appeal again to the Spanish Supreme Court, potentially dragging the dispute on for years. Lovells filed the original suit in February 2004 after Rayo demanded compensation following the firm’s Madrid launch, claiming the brand was too similar to his locally-registered Lovell Abogados. Lovells claimed it has been using the name since 1899 and registered it in 1999 as a Community trade mark in all EU member states — the same year Rayo registered his in Spain. Lovells accused Rayo of acting in bad faith as there are no lawyers called Lovell at his firm and it had been practising in Spain only since 2000.
The IPKat says this is just the sort of stupid prank that can give Spain a bad reputation throughout Europe.

Lovell Abogados here. Email Manuel Rayo here to tell him what you think of his choice of name for a law firm.
LOVELL'S LABOURS LOST? LOVELL'S LABOURS LOST? Reviewed by Jeremy on Thursday, February 03, 2005 Rating: 5

No comments:

All comments must be moderated by a member of the IPKat team before they appear on the blog. Comments will not be allowed if the contravene the IPKat policy that readers' comments should not be obscene or defamatory; they should not consist of ad hominem attacks on members of the blog team or other comment-posters and they should make a constructive contribution to the discussion of the post on which they purport to comment.

It is also the IPKat policy that comments should not be made completely anonymously, and users should use a consistent name or pseudonym (which should not itself be defamatory or obscene, or that of another real person), either in the "identity" field, or at the beginning of the comment. Current practice is to, however, allow a limited number of comments that contravene this policy, provided that the comment has a high degree of relevance and the comment chain does not become too difficult to follow.

Learn more here: http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/p/want-to-complain.html

Powered by Blogger.