Ten and Nine walk away from Boss trademark dispute
Nine has settled its trademark dispute over Ten’s short-lived use of the Boss name for one of its stations, with the two media companies agreeing to pay their own costs.
The case was launched in November last year following Ten’s rebrand of its multichannel from One to Boss – the same name used by the Australian Financial Review for its long-standing executive lifestyle lift-out.
Ten’s use of the Boss name immediately invoked Nine’s legal wrath
Nine – then Fairfax Media – pointed out AFR Boss and The Australian Financial Review Boss were first registered as trademarks in 1999, while ‘Boss’ was registered in 2015.
Both trademarks were registered well before Ten’s 2018 applications under similar industry classes.
At the time of the legal action, a Nine spokesperson told Mumbrella: “We have commenced proceedings against Ten Network to protect our BOSS trade mark. BOSS is a long-held, well-established trade mark of Fairfax’s and we take our intellectual property rights seriously.”
In December, Justice Yates of the Federal Court granted Nine an injunction preventing Ten from using the name. The day before, Ten rebranded Boss to Bold. The court also awarded costs to Nine.
As part of the settlement, the two parties have agreed to cover their own costs and Justice Yates withdrew the costs order in dismissing the case on Thursday.
Both Nine and Ten declined to comment about the settlement when approached by Mumbrella.
This could of been solved over a few beers, we live in a silly world sometimes
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Anything Channel Ten touch is poison. They cant get anything right
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