KANE AND KANI; LAST CHANCE FOR A LIMERICK

Kane and Kani

The IPKat's scholarly and well-informed friend Alexander Tsoutsanis (University of Leiden), spotting the Kat's recent blog on the action brought by the London Borough of Hackney against Nike, informed him as follows:

"In the world of 'rock-star trade mark litigation', the District Court of The Hague rendered a verdict in the case of Karl Kani/Kane. In this case it was held that the (quite well-known) Dutch rock-band KANE was not allowed to sell its merchandising clothing under the name KANE, because to do so was held to be confusingly similar to the KANI clothing label. The court's reasoning is rather short, because it was a preliminary injunction".

Alexander has sent the IPKat a copy of the transcript of the Dutch judgment, which he is happy to forward to any Dutch readers who might want to read it. The IPKat always has Arsenal v Reed-type nightmares over shirts bearing the names of famous people/teams/etc, since he finds it difficult to imagine that any consumer viewing such a shirt would ever think that the legend on the front (as contrasted with the name on the label) was an indication of origin. Merpel says,

Karl Kani here
Kane here
Citizen Cane here
Sugar cane here


Last chance for a limerick

Today's the closing date for the IPKat's limerick competition. The prize? A free place at the Intellectual Property Law and Fashion conference, on Wednesday 27 September, run by leading professional conference organisers CLT.

Programme for the conference here
How to write limericks here
Loony limericks here