The Supreme Court has partially overturned the Court of Appeal ruling and has provided further guidance on what can amount to bad faith. The Supreme Court has found that the Court of Appeal was wrong to reverse the decision reached by the High Court on bad faith but was correct in its decision on infringement.The Supreme Court has found that:The High Court was correct in finding that seeking protection for a trade mark in broad categories without commercial justification to use the mark for all goods and services applied for can amount to bad faith. This is especially the case for anyone applying for the registration of marks “with the intention obtaining an exclusive right for purposes other than those falling within the functions of a trade mark, namely purely as a legal weapon against third parties”It was found that “Sky had applied for and secured these registrations across a great range of goods and services which they never had any intention to sell or provide, and yet they were prepared to deploy the full armoury presented by these SKY marks”The Court of Appeal was, however, right to find that, on the basis of the narrowed specifications of goods and services, infringement by Cloud Migration service had not been established; but no error had been made in relation to a finding of infringement in respect of Cloud Backup service.Additionally, the EU Trade Mark Regulation (the “EUTM Regulation”) continues to have direct effect in the context of proceedings pending before a United Kingdom court designated as an EU trade mark court prior to the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020 (“IP completion day”).This judgment warns applicants to avoid registering trade marks for goods and services they do not intend to use, or to create a ‘legal weapon’ or monopoly over a wide range of goods and services. The implications of this decisions could mean that existing registrations face cancellation actions if the proprietor cannot demonstrate that, at the time of application, there was a reasonable prospect of using the mark for all or some of goods and services covered by the registration. Going forward, Applicants should be mindful when drafting their specification to ensure it doesn’t expose their trade mark to a bad faith challenge.A more detailed analysis of the judgement and its implications will follow.Find a link to the judgement here.