COW PALACE* - registered trademark!

by DOUG COLLIE

A failed Borders business which is still being touted as a "Best Practice Representative" for 2018 by the publication Parliamentary Review despite being placed in the hands of liquidators last month owns a highly unusual trademark, Not Just Sheep & Rugby can reveal.

Avocet Infinite PLC (now known as Omega Infinite) claimed its intellectual property (IP) was worth an estimated £60 million as it outlined 'revolutionary' plans to change the face of agricultural and energy production by implementing 'disruptive technology' on its Berwickshire farms.

Among the proposed developments outlined by directors Martin Frost and Dr Bob Jennings was the establishment of so-called cow palaces in which large herds of Piedmontese cattle would be housed, their dung to provide the raw material for a greener, cleaner fuel.

The Avocet group was obviously keen to protect the cow palace concept, as papers lodged with the UK Intellectual Property Office [IPO] demonstrate.

An application to register 'Cow Palace' as a unique trademark was filed with the IPO in January 2018, and the protection for the phrase was secured in May of that year. The 'title' was transferred from Avocet Infinite, as it then was, to Avocet IP Ltd. in July 2018.

It means the company had exclusive use of Cow Palace under four separate classes of the Intellectual Property regulations.

These cover (Class 29) processed food in relation to meat and other farm products; (Class 31) animal feed and fodder; (Class 42) research and development services including environmentally friendly forms of energy and power; and (Class 44) agricultural services relating to environmental conservation.

Avocet companies also registered a number of other trademark applications with the regulators in the UK, Europe and the United States of America.

The word 'Avocet' or an illustration of the wading bird from which the company took its name features in all of the paperwork lodged with Intellectual Property authorities.

An American trademark application relates to a fuel additive named Avocet with the registration having originally been filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office in November 2014 and registered there in June 2016.

The applicant in November 2014 - a month before Avocet Infinite PLC was incorporated -  was a company called Avocet Solutions Inc., of Hockessin, Delaware, USA.

Categories covered by the successful application were: "Chemical products for use as additives for fuel; chemicals used in industry, science and agriculture; chemical additives for petroleum products; chemical addition for fuel and oils in particular to prevent smoke; chemical additives for diesel fuel for reducing emission."

The Patent Office papers record a change of ownership of the trademark in April 2017 from the American firm to Avocet Infinite, with another ownership change to Avocet IP Ltd in November 2018.

There are three recorded trademark registrations by Avocet IP Ltd. which appear in the files of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). These all feature the word 'Avocet' and were approved for inclusion on the European register in November 2014, August 2017 and February 2018.

*Footnote: It is not clear whether Avocet Infinite management attempted to register Cow Palace as a trademark in the USA. The brand has been the exclusive preserve of the District Agricultural Association of the State of California since 1985.