Trade Marks Act 1938

15 Words used as name or description of an article or substance

(1) The registration of a trade mark shall not be deemed to have become invalid by reason only of any use, after the date of the registration, of a word or words which the trade mark contains, or of which it consists, as the name or description of an article or substance :

Provided that, if it is proved either—

(a) that there is a well-known and established use of the word or words as the name or description of the article or substance by a person or persons carrying on a trade therein, not being use in relation to goods connected in the course of trade with the proprietor or a registered user of the trade mark or (in the case of a certification trade mark) goods certified by the proprietor; or

(b) that the article or substance was formerly manufactured under a patent (being a patent in force on, or granted after, the twenty-third day of December nineteen hundred and nineteen), that a period of two years or more after the cesser of the patent has elapsed, and that the word or words is or are the only practicable name or description of the article or substance;

the provisions of the next succeeding subsection shall have effect.

(2) Where the facts mentioned in paragraph (a) or (b) of the proviso to the foregoing subsection are proved with respect to any word or words, then—

(a) if the trade mark consists solely of that word or those words, the registration of the trade mark, so far as regards registration in respect of the article or substance in question or of any goods of the same description, shall be deemed for the purposes of section thirty-two of this Act to be an entry wrongly remaining on the register;

(b) if the trade mark contains that word or those words and other matter, the Court or the Registrar, in deciding whether the trade mark shall remain on the register, so far as regards registration in respect of the article or substance in question and of any goods of the same description, may in case of a decision in favour of its remaining on the register require as a condition thereof that the proprietor shall disclaim any right to the exclusive use in relation to that article or substance and any goods of the same description of that word or those words, so, however, that no disclaimer on the register shall affect any rights of the proprietor of a trade mark except such as. arise out of the registration of the trade mark in respect of which the disclaimer is made; and

(c) for the purposes of any other legal proceedings relating to the trade mark,—

(i) if the trade mark consists solely of that word or those words, all rights of the proprietor, whether under the common law or by registration, to the exclusive use of the trade mark in relation to the article or substance in question or to any goods of the same description, or

(ii) if the trade mark contains that word or those words and other matter, all such rights of the proprietor to the exclusive use of that word or those words in such relation as aforesaid,

shall be deemed to have ceased on the date at which the use mentioned in paragraph (a) of the proviso to the foregoing subsection first became well known and established, or at the expiration of the period of two years mentioned in paragraph (b) of that proviso.

(3) No word which is the commonly used and accepted name of any single chemical element or single chemical compound, as distinguished from a mixture, shall be registered as a trade mark in respect of a chemical substance or preparation, and any such registration in force at the commencement of this Act or thereafter shall, notwithstanding anything in section thirteen of this Act, be deemed for the purposes of section thirty-two of this Act to be an entry made in the register without sufficient cause, or an entry wrongly remaining on the register, as the circumstances may require :

Provided that the foregoing provisions of this subsection shall not have effect in relation to a word which is used to denote only a brand or make of the element or compound as made by the proprietor or a registered user of the trade mark, as distinguished from the element or compound as made by others, and in association with a suitable name or description open to the public use.