Guiding Guide Education through a trade mark opposition

Guide Education has had a remarkable journey over the past few years. From its humble beginnings as a Youtube channel providing educational content to high school students, Guide Education has since transitioned into a leading online education provider for teachers and parents, with over 22,000 educators in 1,300 schools in 20 countries using their platforms.

​Through its subscription-based video training courses, Guide Education helps its users gain industry recognised CPD qualifications. The platform is incredibly easy to use with all training courses being delivered by video and experienced mentors online, from the comfort of your home. Aside from offering qualifications and certificates, Guide Education also provides several other free online resources that are available to parents and other educators who teach children outside of a school setting.

Guide+ is one of Guide Education’s free resources that equips teachers and other educators with practical teaching advice and guidance. Leon Hady, CEO of Guide Education, wanted to protect the Guide+ brand from the outset. Leon knew that a trade mark registration was the most cost effective way of protecting the Guide+ brand. Registering a trade mark for Guide+ would give Guide Education the exclusive right to use the trade mark. If a competitor used the brand for commercial purposes, Guide Education would have the right to take action against the infringer.

As a Harper James customer on the enterprise plan, Guide Education receives one hour of legal support each month, included with their subscription plan. They used their accrued hours to get in touch with our intellectual property team for assistance with the trade mark registration process.

When Sam Stockman, COO at Guide Education was asked about why they chose the enterprise plan, he said:

One of the key factors as to why we went with the enterprise plan was how inexpensive and flexible the service is, the idea that you can pay monthly and get an hour of free advice gives us the reassurance that we’ll always have legal support on hand as the business continues to grow. The breadth of knowledge Emily had and the transparency of knowing exactly how much it’s going to cost is invaluable. It makes us feel as if we’re in control of how much we’re spending.

Senior intellectual property solicitor Emily Nousios submitted the trade mark application on behalf of Guide Education. Unfortunately, the trade mark was soon opposed by another company. They argued that Guide+ was too similar to their registered trade mark, and there was a real risk that there would be confusion within the marketplace. Wanting to get this matter resolved, whilst avoiding a prolonged legal battle, Guide Education called upon Emily and her colleague, Louise Hughes, an experienced intellectual property paralegal, to resolve the issue.

Louise and Emily entered into negotiations with the opposing company’s legal representatives and were quickly able to reach a settlement that both parties were satisfied with. Guide Education amended its trade mark specification and agreed to use the Guide+ name in a specified format within their key business areas. Guide Education were able to register Guide+ as a trade mark and now both brands will be able to and are successfully co-existing without any issues.

Commenting on the case Emily said:

Sam was very responsive and trusted our advice and guidance to get the result the client wanted. The outcome for Guide Education was that we managed to settle the trade mark dispute without going through potentially expensive opposition proceedings, and the client was able to quickly and economically achieve registration of their trade mark.

Now that the trade mark opposition has been resolved amicably between both parties, Guide Education will now focus on developing and promoting their new, cost effective subscription based packages, aimed at making training accessible to all educators and educational institutions.