Victoria Plum Ltd (t/a Victoria Plumb) v Victorian Plumbing Ltd & Ors [2016] EWHC 2911 (Ch)
The parties were competitors in the online bathroom retailing market. They had traded under similar names (Victorian Plumbing/Victoria Plumb)since about 2001. The claimant claimed for infringement of trade mark by the defendant’s use of its mark as a paid search term on Google in response to searches for the claimant’s name but did not object to any other uses by the defendant of its name for advertising and promotion. The defendant argued that both parties should be entitled to advertise against searches for the other’s name under the doctrine of honest concurrent use but made a conditional counterclaim for passing off by the claimant if it was wrong. The court rejected the defendant’s primary argument and held that neither party was entitled to bid on the other’s name as a paid search term. The decision is currently under appeal
Iain Purvis QC and Anna Edwards-Stuart for the Claimant and Michael Silverleaf QC and Tom Alkin for the Defendants