Endorsements
Your brand name or logo may have parts that the Registrar considers descriptive or common in that particular field. If so, granting you registered rights for the whole mark may interfere with the right of others to fair use of those features. He will require you to endorse your registration with a ‘disclaimer’.
Beacon Sweets had obtained registration of the packet face for its liquorice allsorts confectionery. Cadbury applied to Court for a disclaimer to be endorsed against the registration in terms of which Beacon could not have exclusive rights to the words liquorice allsorts, which appeared on the packet — because liquorice allsorts is the name of the product itself. The disclaimer was ordered by the Court.
The effect of this type of disclaimer is that the registration will not prevent others from making use of that feature. However, this only refers to the disclaimed part of the brand name or logo.
In the trade mark SPACE CASE which was registered for stationery cases, the word ‘space’ was disclaimed. The Court said that the trade mark SPACEY which was used by a competitor for its stationery cases was nevertheless an infringement. The disclaimer did not assist the defendant because SPACEY was not the word disclaimed.