Leading immigration law firm, Paragon Law has secured a
resounding win in a trade mark dispute.
The win has led to a West Bromwich and Peterborough law firm,
previously trading as 'Paragon Solicitors', to change its name to
'H&V Solicitors'. The firm also agreed to pay
£20,000 to cover all of Paragon Law's legal costs in the
matter.
In 2007, Nottingham-based Paragon Law became aware of a law firm
in the Birmingham area, which was trading under the name 'Paragon
Solicitors'. The firm's activities included immigration law,
a field in which Paragon Law is recognised as a nationally
award-winning heavyweight. The firm's use of the 'Paragon'
name infringed Paragon Law's registered trade mark.
Permitting another firm to continue using such a similar name
could have caused confusion in the market, especially in view of
Paragon Law's expansion to Leeds and offices in China and
India.
Paragon Law's managing director Thalej Vasishta instructed
Berryman intellectual property lawyers John Buckby and Scott
Farnsworth.
John Buckby explains: "As a first step, we wrote to 'Paragon
Solicitors', as H&V was called then, explaining Paragon's
position and with the hope that matters would be settled without
further dispute. However the firm ignored our correspondence,
presumably in the hope that the matter would simply disappear and
refused to pay the legal costs that Paragon Law had and was
incurring.
"As H&V was unwilling to settle, Paragon instructed us to
issue proceedings and the case was scheduled to appear in the High
Court in London on 8 October 2009. Finally, at the eleventh
hour, after months of refusing to back down or make any
contribution to Paragon Law's costs, H&V conceded to all our
requests late on 7 October 2009, agreeing to pay £20,000 to
cover all costs incurred by Paragon Law," says John.
Paragon's Thalej Vasishta comments: "Berryman secured a good
result and I am very happy indeed. At the time Paragon Law
was set up, we immediately protected our name through a trade mark
as it was our vision to be the leading practice in our niche area
of immigration law. Our name was chosen because it would
allow us to stand out in a saturated legal market for being the
premier legal firm for immigration law advice both nationally and
internationally.
"The team at Paragon Law has worked hard to carve our reputation
and it was therefore important to us that our name was protected
and that no other firm rode on our coat tails by adopting our
name."