New rules enter into force in the UK today under section 69 of the Companies Act 2006. These rules enable businesses to object to opportunistic company name registrations and are intended to equip brand-owners with similar powers to those conferred by various dispute resolution policies against cybersquatters or “opportunistic” domain name registrants.

The new rules are intended to address the situation where someone is seeking to take advantage of a business’s reputation by registering, for example, variations of its name or, in the knowledge that a merger is about to take place, variations of the name that the new entity is likely to require, in order to get it to buy the registrations. An adjudicator within the UK Intellectual Property Office, to be known as the Company Names Tribunal.

The Company Names Adjudicator Rules 2008 provide for an exchange of evidence and a possible hearing. It is expected that a proportion of the new adjudicators will initially be drawn from hearing officers who currently hear applications relating to trade marks in the UKIPO. The initial application fee is £400. Under these rules, any person (not just a company) may object to a company’s registered name on the basis that it is the same as a trading name in which the objector has goodwill (which includes reputation), or sufficiently similar such that its use in the UK is likely to mislead by suggesting a connection between the company and the objector. If that is established, the company may raise any of a number of defences that are based principally on honest trading practices. If the company fails to make out any of those defences, the objection will succeed. Even if a defence is established, the objection will still be upheld if the objector is able to show that the main purpose in registering the name was to obtain money from the objector or prevent it from registering the name.

[This item is based on a note by Benedict Bird and Alex Batteson, Linklaters. For further information see Class 46 here].