One thing is for certain: the intellectual property world never stands still. As we mark our 27^th year in the industry, the pace of change is accelerating.  

This year, we’ve seen judgments in some of the first cases addressing AI copyright and trade mark infringement, as creators battle to protect their work from the vast ingesting power of AI model trainers. We began to see the real-world applications of the SKY vs SKYKICK Supreme Court judgement, shaping – but not necessarily defining – the issue of what constitutes bad-faith filings. The EU revamped its design regime, bringing us a new (D) symbol, and the UK IPO raised application and service fees for the first time in many years.

Throughout the year, WebTMS has continued enhancing our IP Management System with tools and features designed to boost productivity and efficiency for our clients.

Here are some of the stories we’ve noted and the activities the WebTMS team has enjoyed in 2025.  

January-March: Thatchers makes lemonade with ALDI copycat case

In January, the long-running case between Thatchers and ALDI concluded with a win for Thatchers, as Lord Justice Arnold ruled that ALDI had taken unfair advantage of a trade mark with an established reputation when designing the packaging for its cloudy lemon cider. Commentators from the industry were quick to weigh in with comments supporting the Thatchers vs ALDI judgement. ALDI appealed, but the Supreme Court finally closed the door on the case by rejecting the appeal in June.

Sportswear companies have a reputation for strong trade mark protection; Adidas is well-known for defending its three stripes. However, there were stripes of a different kind at issue at the start of 2025 when its erstwhile brother company, Puma, challenged a trade mark application by golfer Tiger Woods for a tiger-based logo. Professor of Law and Media at Northeastern University School of Law Alexandra Roberts commented on X: “someone tell Puma that pumas don’t have stripes.”   

In the geopolitical arena, Greece succeeded in having the Turkish tourist board’s TurkAegean trade mark cancelled by the EU IPO on the grounds that it was geographically descriptive. In our blog, we explored the role of trade marks and geographic indications in protecting and promoting national identity.

April-June: Skykick kicks in at the UK IPO

In April, our US blog looked at MolsonCoors’ “case of the Mondays”, where a marketing campaign designed to make light of a typo turned into a trade mark dispute with craft Brewery Monday Night Brewing of Super Bowl proportions.

In the UK, the real-world application of SKY vs SKYKICK began to emerge. The UK IPO issued guidance for companies applying to register trade marks, advising them, among other things, to avoid overly broad NICE classifications and to be prepared to show evidence of use or intent to use the mark in every class applied for. We looked at the guidance and what industry commentators are saying on the subject, which was hotly debated at CITMA’s autumn conference, in our SKY vs SKYKICK blog post.

INTA is always a highlight for the WebTMS team, and this year’s San Diego event was no exception. As the event closed, the exciting news broke that, in 2026, the trade mark universe will descend on London!

In June, we launched a range of new WebTMS product features, including updates to our patent module, a batch extend wizard that streamlines date extension actions, and a “create from” button that facilitates the creation of new records based on existing entries. We talked to Support Manager and Senior Software Developer Richard Crookes to get the lowdown on how customer feedback shapes our development strategy.

July-September: AI rights and EU design changes

During the summer, the EU introduced an overhaul to its design regime – the first since 2002. A lot has changed in almost a quarter of a century, and the new arrangements reflect regulatory moves towards repairability and the need for mechanisms to manage rights in the digital ecosystem. We examined the changes in more detail on our EU Design Regime blog.

In August, Anthropic, the company behind the Claude family of large language models, agreed to pay a $1.5bn fine for training its AI on pirated copies of books. This was the first major judgment relating to copyright and AI training, and the settlement is the largest in copyright history. However, District of California Judge William Alsup ruled that training AI on legally acquired books constitutes “transformative fair use.” Anthropic’s mistake was its use of pirated material. This leaves a wealth of questions on the protection of creator rights. Commentators also noted that the size of the settlement is not significant compared to the company’s $183bn valuation. Copyrightlately.com has more on the Anthropic case.

October-December: Paddington gives Spitting Image a hard stare

The AI copyright question continued in the autumn, as Getty Images’ case against Stability AI reached its conclusion in the English High Court. Getty Images accused Stability AI of developing, training, and using its Stable Diffusion model in a way that infringed Getty’s IP rights. While both sides claimed a win, commentators generally felt that Stability AI had more to celebrate, with the Court concluding that, because Stability AI doesn’t store the works on which it has been trained, there are no copies in the resulting model, and therefore no finding of infringement. There’s no doubt that the coming year will see more cases in which IP rights owners and creators seek to challenge AI model training and deployment.

In the world of entertainment, the companies behind Britain’s beloved Paddington Bear have turned a hard stare on satirical TV show Spitting Image. Spitting Image published a YouTube sketch that saw the iconic bear engaging in less than characteristically polite behaviour, sparking ire among the rights owners, and Paddington’s many fans. Trademark Lawyer magazine carried the full Paddington parody story.

As we moved towards Thanksgiving and the holiday season, our blog explored the fascinating world of fragrance, looking at IP protection options and the fight against dupes.

Finally, as the year drew to a close, news broke that the team behind “Operation Bluebird” is seeking to cancel the Twitter trade marks at the USPTO on the basis of abandonment, ahead of a bid to launch a rival social media platform to X, called Twitter.new.

Wishing everyone a Happy Holidays!

As we look ahead to 2026, we anticipate that the pace of change in IP law, rights management, and technology will continue to accelerate.

We’ll see more AI being integrated into key workflows, as paralegals and lawyers refine their prompting skills.

INTA in London will be incredibly exciting, as the trade mark world convenes in our iconic capital, and we can’t wait to see everyone there!

Wishing you all a peaceful holiday and a prosperous new year.