Keep Calm and Carry On Fighting Campaign Update

 

It’s been a month since we launched our action to cancel the EU trade mark on 'Keep Calm and Carry On' and we would like to thank you for all the support we have received. 

The media too have enthusiastically picked up on the campaign, which has been covered on the BBC (TV and radio), the Daily Telegraph, Mail, Evening Standard, regional papers and even Time magazine, the US-international magazine.

We are fighting this battle at our own cost as we believe that this historic emblem of British resolve in adversity should be free for all businesses to use with no one firm monopolising it unfairly.

We are confident we will succeed and, allowing for the rather slow moving cogs of the EU, expect this to be in the next four to six months.  A Keep Calm and Carry On Petition - http://keepcalmcampaign.co.uk – is also gaining ground with almost 1000 signatories to date.

The Arguments

  • The ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ phrase was in widespread use by many companies when the Trade Mark registration was granted and it does not in our view meet the requirements of trade mark law. That Mark Coop failed to register it several years earlier as a UK trademark (2007) shows the UK Intellectual Property Office almost certainly shared our opinion. 
  • This being so, Mr Coop should not have the arbitrary right to decide who can or who cannot use the phrase or the quality of the items on which is it put, which has been his argument for getting the trade mark. A number of firms were using it before he 'jumped on the bandwagon', the accusation he has made of others.

Keep Calm and Carry On Fighting!

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By Mark Kingsley-Williams, Director of Trade Mark Direct.

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