Natasha Courtney-Smith & Anor v The Nottinghill Shopping Bag Company & Ors
Decision date: 18 July 2025
Neutral citation: [2025] EWHC 1793 (IPEC)
Overall AI summary confidence: high
Short overview
This short overview is intended to summarise the case, issues and outcome so far as they are supported by the judgment.
AI confidence in this short overview: high
This case concerned ownership and enforceability of a trade mark and related passing off and copyright claims over a bag logo. The court held the 22 March 2023 renewal was void because the original company’s trade mark had vested bona vacantia in the Crown on dissolution, NHBCL never validly became proprietor and lacked standing, the trade mark would be vulnerable to revocation for non‑use, passing off failed for want of goodwill, and while the logo attracted limited artistic copyright NC‑S’s copyright was not infringed. All principal claims against the Defendants were dismissed.
Ratio decidendi
This summary is intended to identify the ratio decidendi, meaning the legal reasons for deciding and the binding part of the decision.
AI confidence in this ratio decidendi summary: high
Where a dissolved company’s intellectual property has vested bona vacantia in the Crown, third parties lack authority to renew the registered trade mark and any purported renewal without Crown authority is a nullity; use of the mark while title is vested in the Crown is not use with the proprietor’s consent and cannot defeat revocation for non‑use; abandonment by deliberate dissolution ordinarily destroys goodwill such that it cannot later support passing off; a low‑creativity logo attracts narrow artistic copyright protection only, so only close copying of the limited original elements will found infringement.
Obiter dicta
This summary is intended to identify obiter dicta, meaning observations made by the way that were not necessary to deciding the case and are not binding.
AI confidence in this obiter dicta summary: medium
The judgment observed (obiter) that restoration of a dissolved company can in principle permit directions to ratify acts done during dissolution or to seek vesting, but this requires specific applications and exceptional circumstances; assignments after restoration cannot cure a prior void renewal without regard to what rights actually revested; and breaches of undertakings given to the Crown in restoration proceedings may have consequences though they do not automatically invalidate subsequent assignments.