The well-known case concerning the trade mark infringement action brought by Interflora against Marks & Spencer for the use of its INTERFLORA trade mark as a keyword is once again a topical subject (for the previous
rounds in the Google Adwords battle, see our January 2014 newsletter).
With proceedings issued in December 2008, the case went to the Court of Justice and has already been to the Court of Appeal twice.
On 5 November 2014, the British Court of Appeal overturned the British High Court of Justice finding of trademark infringement and ordered a new retrial of the claims for infringement under Article 5(1)(a) of the Trademark Directive and Article 9(1)(a) of the Community Trademark Regulation.
The main reason of that overturn is the identification of various errors of law made by the trial judge, as it was not sure that the judge would have come to the same conclusions had the errors not been made.
