Tuesday 28 July 2009

Infringing goods in transit: are patents more efficacious than trade marks?

In Nokia Corporation v Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (noted here by the IPKat yesterday), Mr Justice Kitchin (Chancery Division, England and Wales) refused Nokia a judicial review of the refusal of the Customs authorities to detain some 400 counterfeit items -- phones and accessories -- that had arrived at London's Heathrow Airport on their way from Hong Kong to Colombia. The decision accepted that, since the counterfeit items had not been put on the market in the European Union, they could not be regarded as having infringed Nokia's registered trade mark rights. This being so, they could not be detained under Regulation 1383/2003.

Two anonymous comments were posted on the IPKat's note which speculated as to whether it would have been wiser for Nokia to proceed on the basis that the items in question infringed its patent rights. PatLit invites readers to comment on the advantages and disadvantages of taking such a course.

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