LATEST IP REPORTS

The February 2004 isue of Sweet & Maxwell's Fleet Street Reports contains reports on five UK intellectual property cases. One of them, Miller Brewing Company v The Mersey Docks and Harbour Company, returns to a topic of practical importance: where a trade mark owner applies for the delivery up of infringing goods (in this case MILLER beer) and serves notice of his application against all parties involved in the infringement including an innocent third party who is storing the goods, who has to pay the costs? Should it be the innocent third party or the equally innocent trade mark owner? Another fascinating case reported in the same issue is Coflexip v Stolt Offshore (No. 2), in which Mr (now Lord) Justice Jacob affirmed that, where an enquiry into damages has been ordered, a patent infringer is estopped from denying the validity of a successful claimant's patent even where that patent has been subsequently held invalid in proceedings, which were under appeal, involving another defendant.