Skunkworks dodges a bullet

PERTH company Skunkworks has been celebrating this week after successfully beating legal action from one of the world’s biggest military contractors, Lockheed Martin. The South Perth company, which makes flat screen mounting products, thinks Lockheed, which makes among other things Stealth Bomber planes, took issue with Skunkworks’s UK website address, www.skunkworks-uk.co.uk. Lockheed thought there would be confusion in the marketplace because SkunkWorks was the name of its undercover cold war technology division was called back in the 1950s. A UK QC heard the matter and rejected Lockheed’s claim against Skunkworks’s website. Skunkworks is still fighting off separate legal action from Lockheed in a trademark registration dispute. But, for now it is celebrating. And why not? According to SkunkWorks, its legal win is one of only three trademark and related cases that Lockheed has lost.