The Trademark Law in UK was amended in January 2019 to include the registration of motion marks. A Motion Mark is a moving logo or an animation of a logo, which is created and used by a company as a technique for innovative marketing in order to attract consumers towards their products/services. The amendment in the UK law now allows brand owners to obtain a trade mark protection for motion-based trade marks (e.g. GIFs, holograms and other forms of moving images) in a simple manner.

It was possible to register Motion marks in UK even before 2019, however, the applicant was to create something close to a 2D flicker book capturing each movement in the logo. This is the process to register motion marks in India as on date. Some of the popular motion marks are: Nokia’s clasping hands sequence, the Microsoft windows, Sony Ericsson’s colour liquid sequence, etc.

On June 26, 2019, the British IP Day was marked by the grant of the first ever moving multi-media mark in UK. Toshiba, the world famous Japanese company had applied for the company’s logo which zooms out with polygons representing origami appearing and disappearing around it. The UKIPO Chairman stated that, “Trademarks are likely to become increasingly innovative in the digital age, as organizations explore imaginative ways of reflecting their distinctive brand personalities using creative IP. Under the amended trademark law, submission of motion marks, hologram trademarks and sound marks via multimedia format now enables examiners to see exactly what the creator of the mark intended”.

Compiled by: Adv. Sachi Kapoor | Concept & Edited by: Dr. Mohan Dewan

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