Intellectual Property - Trademarks

1. DEFINITIONS

A trademark is defined in the Trademarks Act, 1963 as:

"...a mark used or proposed to be used in relation to goods for the purpose of indicating, or so as to indicate, a connection in the course of trade, between the goods and some person having the right either as proprietor, or as registered user, to use the mark, whether with or without any indication of the identity of that person..."

The Act defines a mark as including:

"A device, brand, heading, label, ticket, name, signature, word, letter, numeral or any combination thereof."

There is no means of registering a service mark in the Republic of Ireland, and reliance must be placed onto common law remedy of passing off for protection.