In response, TB argued that it had acted lawfully within the terms of the Act and had no obligation to disclose its commercial plans to license and/or acquire the 1996 mark. for five years’ non-use) by allowing TB to side-step the three-month limitation in Section 46(3). as a defence to the infringement claim, but also to invalidate ABP’s marks and seek to counterclaim ABP’s infringement of the 1996 mark).ĪBP argued that the licence (and subsequent assignment) had been a deliberate strategy to avoid revocation of the mark under Section 46 of the Act (i.e. TB subsequently sought to amend its pleadings to deploy the 1996 mark defensively and offensively (i.e. The acquisition involved a third-party agent purchasing (and then subsequently licensing) the 1996 mark to TB for the three months preceding the transfer of ownership to TB. Even if there had been a period of co-existence, it was short lived and insufficient to support a claim for honest concurrent use.ĭuring the course of the proceedings, in January 2021, TB acquired ownership of a trade mark for the word STEALTH, which had been registered in Class 9 for goods including 'i-fi apparatus, instruments and loudspeakers' in May 1996. The present case was a straightforward trade mark dispute which, by virtue of the UKIPO proceedings, ABP had won. In particular, it argued that TB’s defence of honest concurrent use lacked reality or conviction.
The parties’ applicationsĪBP applied for summary judgment on the basis that TB did not have a realistic prospect of successfully defending the claim. where two traders have co-existed, using identical or similar trade marks). In its defence, TB pleaded honest concurrent use of the STEALTH mark (i.e. In November 2020, ABP issued proceedings against TB for trade mark infringement contrary to Section 10(1) and (2) of the Trade Marks Act 1994 (the 'Act'). ABP successfully opposed the application in a dispute between the parties at the UKIPO later that year. In March 2018, they had attempted to register STEALTH as a trade mark in respect of, 'headsets for use with computers headphones', among other things. and Turtle Beach Europe Limited (collectively TB) have, since August/October 2014, also used the sign STEALTH in the United Kingdom in relation to gaming headsets. The defendants, Voyetra Turtle Beach Inc. ABP’s predecessor had used the sign STEALTH from mid-2014.
The trade marks were registered on 6 February 2017 and 24 March 2020 respectively. The claimant, ABP owns two UK trade marks for STEALTH (word mark) and STEALTH VR (stylised font), for goods in Class 9 including 'audio headsets for playing video games'. In November 2020, ABP Technology issued proceedings against tech brand, Turtle Beach for trade mark infringement (ABP Technology Ltd v Voyetra Turtle Beach, Inc EWHC 3096 (Ch)).
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