State-backed Temple Bar Properties has ended a dispute over trademark rights with one of its tenants.

Last August the company applied to the Patents Office to register the Design Yard name as a trademark, despite the fact that its tenant, Whichcraft Ltd, had bought the name and been trading with it for the previous nine months.

Whichcraft formally opposed Temple Bar Properties' attempts to register the name as its own on the basis that the State company had no claim to the trademark. The Patents Office was set to arbitrate on the dispute.

However, Temple Bar Properties, the State-established property management company for Dublin's tourist quarter, confirmed that it has dropped its claim to the Design Yard name, leaving Whichcraft free to register it as its own.

Whichcraft bought the rights to the name from the liquidator when the original Design Yard was wound up in November 2003. The name was not registered as a trademark at that point.

Temple Bar Properties chief executive, Mr Dermot McLaughlin, said it had applied to register the name because the original Design Yard Ltd was set up with State aid and Temple Bar Properties had given it a licence to a property under a special "cultural use".

He said the company had made the application on a precautionary basis in order to protect a public investment. "Having taken advice on it, we decided it was best to let it go to Whichcraft."