The Times has won its legal battle in the Dublin high court for the right to promote its new digital newspaper for Ireland as its “Irish edition”.
A judge refused to grant the Irish Times an injunction on the basis that the use of the phrase “The Times Irish Edition” amounted to an infringement of the Irish Times’s trademark.
The case arose from the decision by Rupert Murdoch’s London-based Times to publish an edition of The Times targeted at the Irish market as part of a seven-day subscription package with the Sunday Times.
Mr Justice John Hedigan ruled that the injunction should be refused on the grounds of delay in seeking it. The court was told that the London Times’s launch had been “common knowledge” since September 2014.
The Irish Times had sought various injunctions pending the outcome of a full hearing. They included a restraint on Times Newspapers (TNL) promoting the digital publication using words “confusingly similar” to The Irish Times.
TNL contended that there was no confusion and it also argued that delay by The Irish Times in bringing its application disentitled it to the injunctions.
The judge said he was satisfied that the Irish Times had not moved with reasonable haste. He adjourned a decision on liability for costs of the three-day hearing.
Richard Oakley, editor of the Times’s Irish edition, welcomed the judge’s decision. He said: “We have rigorously defended our position and will now proceed to launch a seven-day digital newspaper of the Times and Sunday Times for the Irish market.
“Our new daily, digital, edition of the Times for the Irish market will be a national newspaper with a global outlook and exclusive sports highlight packages produced by a team of up to 30 Irish journalists based in Dublin...
“We are very proud to be the first title to invest at this level in the Monday-Saturday Irish market in recent years.”
Sources: Irish Times/The Times/Irish Independent/News UK. Earlier stories here and here.
