CA-2025-000801 - [2025] EWCA Civ 1341

It is common ground that, in interpreting the Trade Mark, the court should take into account each of (i) its categorisation by the applicant as a “figurative mark”, (ii) the pictorial representation and (iii) the written description, and that none of these three elements should be given precedence over the other. Iceland contends that the judge erroneously treated the categorisation as a “fixed starting point” which trumped any inconsistency either between the categorisation and the written description or between the written description and the pictorial representation. I do not accept this. In my view the judge did not give any of the three elements precedence, but correctly took them all into account in interpreting the Trade Mark. Whether he reached the correct conclusion is another matter.