1-800 Flowers Inc. v Phonenames Ltd

JurisdictionEngland & Wales
Judgment Date18 May 2001
Neutral Citation[2001] EWCA Civ 721
Date18 May 2001
CourtCourt of Appeal (Civil Division)

COURT OF APPEAL

Before Lord Justice Peter Gibson, Lord Justice Buxton and Lord Justice Jonathan Parker.

1-800 Flowers Inc
and
Phonenames Ltd

Costs - jurisdiction to assess costs summarily - not to be used to introduce scale of judicial tariffs for different categories of case

Judge not entitled to impose costs tariff

The jurisdiction to assess costs summarily was not to be used as a vehicle for the introduction of a scale of judicial tariffs for different categories of case.

The Court of Appeal so stated, inter alia, in a reserved judgment when dismissing the appeal of 1-800 Flowers Inc and allowing the cross-appeal of Phonenames Ltd from an order of Mr Justice Jacob in a trade mark dispute in the Chancery Division on December 20, 1999 when he summarily assessed Phonenames' costs under Part 43 of the Civil Procedure Rules at Pounds 10,000.

Mr Geoffrey Hobbs, QC and Miss Emma Himsworth for 1-800 Flowers; Mr Mark Platts-Mills, QC and Mr James Abrahams for Phonenames.

LORD JUSTICE JONATHAN PARKER, having dismissed the appeal said on the cross-appeal that it was of the essence of a summary assessment of costs that the court should focus on the detailed breakdown of costs actually incurred by the party in question as shown in its statement of costs; and that it should carry out the assessment by reference to the items appearing in that statement. In so doing the court might find it helpful to draw to a greater or lesser extent on its own experience of summary assessment of costs in what it considered to be comparable cases.

Equally, having dealt with the costs by reference to the detailed items in the statement of costs which was before it, the court might find it helpful to look at the total sum at which it had arrived in order to see whether that sum fell within the bounds of what it considered reasonable and proportionate.

If the court considered the...

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    ...be unnecessarily confusing and restrictive as well as not in the interest of the public or the trade: at [113]. 800-Flowers Trade Mark [2002] FSR 12 (folld) Al Bassam Trade Mark [1995] RPC 511 (refd) Ansul BV v Ajax Brandbeveiliging BV [2003] RPC 717 (refd) Blanchard v Hill (1742) 2 ATK 484......
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1 books & journal articles
  • Intellectual Property Law
    • Singapore
    • Singapore Academy of Law Annual Review No. 2007, December 2007
    • 1 d6 Dezembro d6 2007
    ...owner and what the reader will understand if he accesses the site. 17.21 The English Court of Appeal affirmed Jacob J”s decision (see [2002] FSR 12). But Buxton LJ proposed another approach to this issue. According to him, it was not enough for a trade mark proprietor to put up his trade ma......

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