It's a hard knock life

Often one of the trickiest matters for clients, is when their brand attracts negative attention from one of the larger corporates who rigorously police their trade marks and have budgets to match. Most Trade Mark attorneys you ask will doubtless have a list in their heads as to the brands who always oppose or object - we all have IP “David v Goliath” war stories. Leicester band, Easy Life, now rebranded as Hard Life (clever brand change, btw)  recently changed their name following a legal dispute with easyGroup (who have a legal budget reported to be in the millions). The parties have now reached an out of court agreement and assigned over their IP rights in their ‘easy’ marks and domain. It would be easy (no pun intended) to assume that there's a lot of room for coexistence between and Indie band and a massive airline, but, in this case, there was not.  IP rights are like elastic. They stretch further than you would think: particularly in the hands of lawyers who know what they are doing.

Image credit (below): https://twitter.com/hardlifeco/status/1380445691793801219/photo/1