The Court of Appeal has delivered a decision in the long running
trade mark battle between Specsavers and ASDA. This brings
about the conclusion of a case which has been ongoing for over six
years and sees Specsavers defend the validity of one of their
registrations, despite not showing use of the mark as such.
The story so far
The dispute between ASDA and Specsavers began when ASDA, one of
the UK's largest supermarkets, ran a marketing campaign to
promote its own optician services, using the logo shown above on
the left.
ASDA also used the slogans BE A REAL SPEC SAVER AT ASDA and SPEC
SAVINGS AT ASDA.
In response to ASDA's advertising campaign Specsavers
brought proceedings against ASDA both for trade mark infringement
and passing off on the basis of their trade mark registrations for
the word mark SPECSAVERS and their two logo marks as shown above on
the right.
