Buying an old TV trademark

From my knowledge, there wouldn't be a problem with that. ITV aren't currently using that mark, which would make it very difficult to argue against someone else using it if it was to lapse.


(IANAL, but have worked on a few trademark applications and one dispute)

Possibly related to this thread: one of the credits on Autumnwatch this week is BBC OB Comms, who are nothing to do with the BBC (other than, I'd assume, having been started by a former employee)

I think there is some creative punctuation in that name which doesn't always get used...

A bit of searching on the IPO website reveals that it does not appear that Rediffusion nor the star logo (which Rentokil Initial used for loads of things until quite recently) have been protected by trademark, which is probably what allows Victor Lewis-Smith to use it.

Rediffusion London is protected, although how enforcable their trademark would be given its prior use, I have no idea: https://www.ipo.gov.uk/tmcase/Results/1/UK00002396787

I wonder if there are any 'passing off' laws which would prohibit someone from setting up, say Yorkshire Productions and pass themselves off as a continuation of the original Yorkshire.

I presume in this case it would be 'Yorkshire Television' which was the trademark and 'Yorkshire Productions' would be fine as you'd never be able to claim a geographic term as a trademark by itself. Whether or not the chevron logo could be claimed by someone else if ITV allow it to lapse as a trademark is another matter, although I would've thought ITV plc may find themselves on sticky ground trying to argue on one hand that the logo is their trademark and can't be re-registered by anyone else when on the other hand they abandoned it 10 years ago and are no longer in any way actively using it.

Rather ironically, if someone else did successfully register the chevron as their trademark, they could then claim for trademark infringement if an old Yorkshire programme retains the original frontcap/endcap and essentially uses what is now someone else's brand!

Not true. Do a Trademark search on 'Anglia' for example. If I wanted to setup a home improvement business, I would be unable to use that particular word.

Absolute rubbish.

I said 'could claim' not that it would work - the argument would certainly be valid, whether or not it was successful.

With regards to geographic words being trademarked, there absolutely isn't a train operator called 'Greater Anglia' then? (and there wasn't a 'Central Trains' either?). There also aren't numerous businesses with 'Westcountry' in them? And that's before you get into things like 'Anglian Home Improvements' which may not be called 'Anglia' but very obviously knicked it's logo from Anglia Television.

Did you read that post at all?

Not true. Anglia Railways (the railway operator from 1997-2004), for example, was commonly known (and branded) simply as "Anglia"

The use of trademarks can sometimes only apply to certain industries/products, so you may end up with different companies within different sectors operating under the same brand name.

You didn't read his post properly either. Excellent.

Going back to the original point, there are countless examples outside of the media world of an unrelated business taking on a brand name recognised as originally belonging to another business within the same sector, and being able to do that because the original trademark has lapsed either by registration, by lack of active use, or both. Going back again to train companies, First Great Western has just rebranded as GWR, irrespective of the fact that First Group has absolutely no connection with the original GWR.

Similarly, given that ITV plc have abandoned all of the brand names that the original regional stations used to trade under (with some not even getting continued acknowledgement in regional news titles), they cannot have it both ways and also prevent anyone else from ever re-using those names if they allow any trademark registrations that might still exist to lapse when they are no longer actively using the trademarks. Media is not an industry with separate rules.