Registrability in UK Law

In my view that task should be carried out so as to limit the specification so that it reflects the circumstances of the particular trade and the way that the public would perceive the use. If the test of infringement is to be applied by the court having adopted the attitude of such a person, then I believe it appropriate that the court should do the same when deciding what is the fair way to describe the use that a proprietor has made of his mark.

In the Court of Appeal, Jacob LJ dealt comprehensively with the question of when an invention could be considered obvious on the ground that it was obvious to try. He correctly summarised the authorities, starting with the judgment of Diplock LJ in Johns-Manville Corporation's Patent [1967] RPC 479, by saying that the notion of something being obvious to try was useful only in a case in which there was a fair expectation of success.

I do not think there is anything technical about this: the consumer is not expected to think in a pernickety way because the average consumer does not do so. In coming to a fair description the notional average consumer must, I think, be taken to know the purpose of the description. Otherwise they might choose something too narrow or too wide. The whole exercise consists in the end of forming a value judgment as to the appropriate specification having regard to the use which has been made.

The visual, aural and conceptual similarities of the marks must be assessed by reference to the overall impressions created by the marks bearing in mind their distinctive and dominant components. Furthermore, if the association between the marks causes the public to wrongly believe that the respective goods come from the same or economically linked undertakings, there is a likelihood of confusion.

Ultimately the court has to evaluate all the relevant circumstances in order to answer a single and relatively simple question of fact: was it obvious to the skilled but unimaginative addressee to make a product or carry out a process falling within the claim. As Aldous LJ said in Norton Healthcare v Beecham Group Plc (unreported, 19 June 1997):

I reject Mr Alexander's submission that one should construe database and database programs to "freestanding" ones. Mr Alexander's analogy with the car would only be relevant at all if the specification was limited so as to restrict it to goods where the database program was necessarily sold as a small part of a larger article. The specification in issue here does not have that effect.

The purpose of the examination is not to see whether the overall appearance of the two designs is similar, but to judge whether the particular similarities relied on are sufficiently close, numerous or extensive to be more likely to be the result of copying than of coincidence. It is at this stage that similarities may be disregarded because they are commonplace, unoriginal, or consist of general ideas.