''Exxon Corp. v. Exxon Insurance Consultants International Ltd'' 982Ch. 119 is a leading decision in English law on the existence of

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...

in a name alone and the infringement of a

trade mark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from oth ...

. The Court found that typically there is no copyright in a name, invented or otherwise, and that a trade mark can only be infringed when the infringing party shares part of the market segment.Alexandra Allen Franks, Copyright protection for 'individual words of an invented language' The Plaintiff, Exxon Corp, had claimed the copyright of the word and went on to file an injunction to stop the defendant company from using the word 'Exxon', under Exxon's copyright claim to its own name under English Copyright law, protecting 'original literary works' and further asked the defendant company to remove the word from the company name. However, Judge Oliver decided to not grant the injunction to an infringement of copyright and noted that the word did not qualify for copyright protection as an ′original literary work′. This is because it conveyed no information, provides no instruction nor pleasure and is furthermore merely a combination of letters from the alphabet. Judge Graham quoted '"if the plaintiffs' argument is right .... the consequences would be far-reaching and probably in many cases objectionable'. On appeal it was further emphasised by Lord Justice Stevenson that 'I am not sure whether this Exxon"can be said to be a "work" at all; I am clearly of the opinion that it cannot be said to be a 'literary work'.Exxon Corp., Ch. 119 at 143.

Trade mark

With regard to the trade mark, the Court found that the use of this word by the defendants, who work in a field that in no way shares a

market Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: *Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand *Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, an ...

segment with the plaintiff, in no way dilutes the plaintiff's brand name nor infringes on its trade mark.

References

1981 in British law 1981 in case law Court of Appeal (England and Wales) cases ExxonMobil litigation Trademark case law United Kingdom copyright case law United Kingdom intellectual property case law {{UK-law-stub