Practice Areas
Benet practises in all areas of Intellectual Property law as well as contractual and commercial disputes, particularly those with a technical or entertainment law aspect.
He has a particular interest in Trade Mark law and has appeared in a number of significant recent trade mark cases including Cartier v BSkyB and others, which established the availability and conditions for the grant of Internet blocking injunctions in areas other than copyright, Merck v Merck, which considered the law on targeting, use in the course of trade and scope of revocation for non-use of trade mark. He also appears regularly in the General Court and Court of Justice of the European Union including OHIM v National Lottery Commission Case C-530/12P, which established the obligation on EUIPO to investigate matters of law in trade mark invalidation actions, and Brandconcern v EUIPO Case C-577/14 P, which established the proper approach to class heading specifications.
Prior to taking Silk, Benet was appointed to the Attorney-General’s A panel of Counsel in 2015, whose members deal with the most complex government cases in all kinds of courts and tribunals, often against QCs. From 2005 – 2010 Benet was on the C panel, advising on disputes ranging from claims for breach of contract arising out of the UK-Russia Closed Nuclear Cities Partnership to claims for infringement of data protection principles by prisoners.
