There's an article coming out soon in the Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice (JIPLP), 'Trade Marks in Tanzania: the prima facie case and interim relief’. The author, Alex B. Makulilo, is an advocate and Assistant Lecturer of Law at the Open University of Tanzania. The abstract is as follows:
Legal context: This article analyses case law developed by the High Court of Tanzania pursuant to temporary injunction in trade mark infringement disputes. However analysis of this case law is limited to the principle of ‘prima facie case’ as this appears to be the most difficult to apply in the context of trade mark infringement disputes.
Key points: This difficulty has rendered most applications for temporary injunction to be refused unnecessarily making this remedy virtually unavailable. The Court's reluctance to grant a temporary injunction has always been justified on the ground that it is difficult to determine temporary injunctions in trade mark infringement disputes without considering the merits of the main suit.It is possible to access this article in advance of publication on payment of a fee to the publisher by clicking here and scrolling down to 'purchase short term access'. Once the issue in which this article appears has been published, I hope to be able to persuade the publishers to make it available free of charge to readers of this weblog.
Practical significance: Although such justification has frequently been stressed by judges, little guidance has been provided by the Court as to how a plaintiff may establish ‘prima facie case’ in applications for temporary injunction in trade mark infringement disputes. In this article the author argues that since proof of trade mark infringement is established on the basis of the ‘likelihood of confusion’ of identical or similar trade marks, then ‘prima facie case’ in temporary injunction in trade mark infringement disputes would have been established when the Court is satisfied that contested trade marks are identical or similar.
