Chloe Sullivan

September 2025

This High Court dispute between two Portobello Road Market traders over the rights to the brand “The Notting Hill Shopping Bag” considered issues of trade mark infringement, copyright infringement and passing off.

“The Notting Hill Shopping Bag” brand has been used by trader, Natasha Courtenay-Smith, to sell tote bags in the Notting Hill area since 2009. Natasha was the original creator of the brand and traded through her company, “The Notting Hill Shopping Bag Company Limited”, of which she was director and shareholder, until 2018, when Natasha voluntarily dissolved her company.

Before dissolving the company, in 2013, Natasha applied to register the following logo in the name of the company:

When dissolving the company, in 2018, Natasha did not transfer the registered trade mark or the goodwill associated with the mark. As a consequence, the mark and associated goodwill became vested in the Crown under the doctrine of bona vacantia, meaning the rights became ownerless property and were passed to the Crown.

In 2023, Natasha became aware that two brothers were trading in the same area under the same company name, “The Notting Hill Shopping Bag Company Limited”, as well as a similar company name, “The Notting Hill Shopper Bag. Ltd”.

The two brothers were selling their own tote bag, branded as “The Notting Hill Shopper Bag”, and had applied to register the following logo:

Natasha filed an opposition against the brothers’ application and also restored her dissolved company to the register. Once the company was restored, Natasha attempted to assign her trade mark to a newly incorporated company, “The Notting Hill Bag Company Limited”. Natasha then applied, through the newly incorporated company, to renew the registration for her mark.

Natasha and her newly incorporated company then issued proceedings – the new company taking action against the brothers for trade mark infringement and passing off and Natasha, herself, taking action against the brothers for copyright infringement.

In short, the court dismissed all of these claims.

In more detail, in relation to the claim for trade mark infringement, the Judge found that the trade mark registration which the claim relied upon had expired on 2 May 2023 and had not been validly renewed, because at the time of the attempted renewal, the mark was vested in the Crown as bona vacantia, meaning neither Natasha nor her new company had authority to renew the mark.

When a company is dissolved and the property becomes vested in the Crown, the Crown have the authority to either disclaim or sell the property. This includes intellectual property, such as trade marks and their associated goodwill. The Crown typically does not renew trade marks, nor does it authorise others to do so, it merely gives permission for any continued use of the mark.

Since Natasha had not bought her trade mark back from the Crown, her attempt to assign the mark to her newly incorporated company after her previously dissolved company had been restored was ineffective, because the right was no longer hers to assign.

Unsurprisingly, this presented a fundamental problem for Natasha in her efforts to pursue an action for trade mark infringement, because she had no validly registered trade mark right to enforce.

In relation to the claim for passing off, the court explained that for a claimant to be successful they must show they have established goodwill in the UK and that the defendant has committed an actionable misrepresentation, causing damage to that goodwill.

The Judge concluded that any goodwill associated with Natasha’s trade mark was destroyed upon dissolution of her company, particularly because Natasha’s decision to dissolve her company did not merely represent a decision to cease trading, but a deliberate and final act to abandon her business.

The Judge also confirmed that restoration of Natasha’s dissolved company does not revive the goodwill which had been lost. Hence, Natasha’s attempts to assign the goodwill without also transferring the underlying business were ineffective.

Natasha then attempted to argue that her new company, “The Notting Hill Bag Company Limited”, had generated its own goodwill. However, the Judge was not convinced by the evidence Natasha presented. Specifically, the Judge found that the evidence did not provide sufficient proof of trading activity, reputation or sales of the branded tote bags by the newly incorporated company.  The Judge made it clear that the mere use of the brand is not enough to establish goodwill. Instead, there must be concrete evidence, such as sales, marketing or public recognition.

When considering Natasha’s claim for copyright infringement, the court accepted that Natasha’s logo was an original artistic work and also that Natasha owned the copyright.

The court found, however, that the level of creativity involved in creating the work did not meet the required bar. In coming to this conclusion, the court analysed the creative decisions Natasha would have made when designing the logo, such as the use of a lower-case “t” and a full stop, the left-hand alignment of the text and the choice of font, which was Arial.

Whilst the court did acknowledge each of these choices as creative decisions, they concluded that the overall degree of creativity was insufficient, even given the constraints of the subject matter and the limited scope for originality in a simple, text logo.

Due to the narrow scope of copyright protection, the court concluded that only a close copy would infringe and that the brothers’ logo, although similar in concept, exhibited some key differences, namely the letters were all in capitals, the font was different, the text was laid out across three lines instead of four and, crucially, the brother’s logo used the term “Shopper” instead of “Shopping”.

The Judge found these differences to be sufficient to justify that the brothers had not copied a substantial part of Natasha’s work and, hence, concluded that no copyright infringement had taken place.

This decision offers an important reminder to businesses and their advisers about the serious and potentially permanent legal consequences corporate dissolution can have on intellectual property rights, if the rights are not properly safeguarded.

Upon dissolution of a company, its assets, including intellectual property rights, are automatically passed to the Crown and, crucially, restoration of said company does not guarantee restoration of the rights, especially in cases where renewal deadlines have been missed.

The fate of the associated goodwill appears to be particularly unforgiving, in that any goodwill is considered to be lost upon dissolution and cannot be revived by subsequent restoration of the company. This decision also confirms that goodwill must be transferred with the underlying business and, thus, cannot be transferred in isolation.

Accordingly, the decision serves as a warning that commercially important assets, such as intellectual property, should not be overlooked when undergoing significant corporate events, such as a dissolution or restructure of a company, because this can have detrimental and potentially irreversible consequences.