Vendome Luxury Group defends its IPRs


Vendome Luxury Group has enjoyed a number of successes recently in the UK in defending the intellectual property rights of the Companies in its group, including Cartier, Montblanc, Piaget, Baume & Mercier and Vacheron Constantin.

  • Montblanc recently succeeded in preventing Spycatcher, the surveillance equipment specialists, from selling an unauthorised modified version of the classic Montblanc Meisterstuck black and gold design. Without asking permission, Spycatcher had been building into genuine Montblanc pens a transmitter and receiver, so that the pens could act as a "bug". These products were described as "Montblanc custom built transmitting pen(s).

Montblanc issued High Court proceedings for trade mark infringement and passing off. However, Spycatcher promptly capitulated, agreeing to give undertakings to the Court to cease their infringing activities and to deliver up their stock of the pens.

  • Cybersquatters should also beware, Montblanc obtained an ex-parte injunction preventing Just Results Plc from disposing of the domain name montblanc.co.uk pending an inter-partes hearing. Following the grant of the ex-parte injunction, Just Results transferred the name to Montblanc without charge.
  • Smartnet Limited had registered a series of Vendome domain names including cartier.co.uk, piaget.co.uk, baume&mercier.co.uk and vacheronconstantin.co.uk. In the wake of the action taken to reclaim montblanc.co.uk, the liquidator for Smartnet Limited agreed to transfer all four domain names to the relevant Vendome companies.
In all the above matters Vendome was represented by the specialist Intellectual Property practice, Willoughby & Partners. Dawn Osborne of Willoughby & Partners commented "we are delighted to have achieved these successes for Vendome quickly and cheaply and to have brought the defendants amicably to settlements at an early stage, especially in the light of the fact that international companies can sometimes view the UK as a more difficult jurisdiction than some continental equivalents for protection of intellectual property rights".

In this regard, Cartier also recently sued Caura International Limited and two of its distributors for having sold a look-a-like version of Cartier's classic Love Bracelet. The claims included passing off, trade mark infringement and infringement of a well known mark. A favourable settlement was reached out of Court. However, Bharat Dube, one of Vendome's in house counsel in Geneva had this to say: "I believe a law of unfair competition is needed in the UK. In France and Germany it is relatively straightforward to take an action against look-a-likes, whereas in the UK it is necessary to be innovative with one's legal strategies. Innovation of this sort is one of Willoughby & Partners' greatest strengths, but it would be easier to enforce our rights in the UK against look-a-likes on the basis of unfair competition laws".