Richard Southall is a Consultant Barrister in our Litigation department.
Richard was called to the Bar in 1983 as a member of Middle Temple and completed his pupillage in New Square, Lincolns Inn. Richard is a subscribing member of the bar, regulated by the Bar Council and the Bar Standards Board. For Bishop & Sewell, Richard acts across a broad range of complex contentious and non-contentious corporate, property and intellectual property cases.
He recently litigated on behalf of a major internet clothing business whose designs had been emulated by a competitor. The proceedings saw the largest number of designs ever considered by the English High Court in a single case. He has registered a large number of trademarks in various matters to protect his client’s interests and has successfully pursued several patent applications.
Richard has recently negotiated a settlement with a leading UK insurer for a construction company and has acted for other commercial clients in various types of proceedings including setting aside a freezing injunction obtained by a UK regulator when the regulator was ordered to pay the client’s costs. He assists his clients’ interests internationally, engaging with exceptional overseas lawyers on their behalf, which enables clients to have a global reach without having to source local legal expertise themselves.
Examples of work undertaken :
- Issuing proceedings in three jurisdictions against a global online market place as a result of their failure to take down items which infringed both UK and EU design rights and negotiating a settlement following the online market place’s agreement to include design right infringement in their take down procedure.
- In obtaining High Court injunctions against numerous parties for infringement of UK and EU design rights and infringement of copyright as a result of sales through online market places and social media.
- In threatening proceedings against several social media platforms for allowing parties to infringe copyright and offer goods for sale which infringed UK and EU design rights.
- Issuing proceedings on behalf of the owner of the House of CB brand against a rival brand, Oh Polly, for the infringement of UK and EU design right in 91 garment designs and passing off. This is the largest design right case ever to have been considered by the English High Court. The court found that there had been flagrant infringement of UK and EU design rights in a sample selection of the garments and awarded damages of £75,276.64 and additional damages for the flagrancy of the infringement of £300,000.00. Copies of the judgments in this case can be found at:
Other notable instructions include:
- Obtaining an injunction in the High Court in London against an infringer based in China who had set up copycat websites with similar domain names and who was selling copy garments.
- In liaising with lawyers in the USA to obtain an injunction in the USA against an infringer based in China and his UK company which had applied for trade marks in the USA in bad faith and obtaining an award of damages.
- Making multiple applications to WIPO pursuant to the Domain Name Dispute Resolution Procedure in respect of domain names which infringed registered trade marks and had been created in bad faith and obtaining decisions requiring the domains to be transferred to our clients.
- Opposing applications for trade marks in the UK which are similar to our client’s trade marks.
- In liaising with lawyers in other jurisdictions to oppose trade marks which had been applied for in bad faith in the USA, Canada, Australia, Singapore and France.
