The House considered the requirements for the tort of passing off. The judge has the sole responsibility for deciding whether anybody has been misled. He will hear evidence, but must not surrender his assessment to others.
Lord Parker said: ‘This principle is stated by Lord Justice Turner in Burgess v Burgess (LR 14 CD p. 748) and by Lord Halsbury in Reddaway v Banham (LR (1906) AC at page 204), in the proposition that nobody has any right to represent his goods as the goods of somebody else. It is also sometimes stated in the proposition that nobody has the right to pass off his goods as the goods of somebody else. I prefer the former statement, for whatever doubts may be suggested in the earlier authorities, it has long been settled that actual passing-off of a defendant’s goods for the plaintiff’s need not be proved as a condition precedent to relief in Equity either by way of an inunction or of an inquiry as to profits or damages ( Edelsten v Edelsten 1 De G., J and S 185 and Iron-Ox Remedy Company Ld v Co-operative Wholesale Society Ld 24 RPC 425). Nor need the representation be fraudulently made. It is enough that it has in fact been made, whether fraudulently or otherwise, and that damages may probably ensue, though the complete innocence of the party making it may be a reason for limiting the account of profits to the period subsequent to the date at which he becomes aware of the true facts. The representation is in fact treated as the invasion of a right giving rise at any rate to nominal damages, the inquiry being granted at the plaintiff’s risk if he might probably have suffered more than nominal damages’ and
‘My Lords, the basis of a passing-off action being a false representation by the defendant, it must be proved in each case as a fact that the false representation was made. It may, of course, have been made in express words, but cases of express misrepresentation of this sort are rare. The more common case is, where the representation is implied in the use or imitation of a mark, trade name, or get-up with which the goods of another are associated in the minds of the public, or of a particular class of the public. In such cases the point to be decided is whether, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, the use by the defendant in connection with the goods of the mark, name, or get-up in question impliedly represents such goods to be the goods of the plaintiff, or the goods of the plaintiff of a particular class or quality, or, as it is sometimes put, whether the defendant’s use of such mark, name, or get-up is calculated to deceive. It would, however, be impossible to enumerate or classify all the possible ways in which a man may make the false representation relied on.
There appears to be considerable diversity of opinion as to the nature of the right, the invasion of which is the subject of what are known as passing-off actions. The more general opinion appears to be that the right is a right of property. This view naturally demands an answer to the question – property in what? Some authorities say property in the mark, name, or get-up improperly used by the defendant. Others say, property in the business or goodwill likely to be injured by the misrepresentation. Lord Herschell in Reddaway v Banham (LR (1906) AC 139) expressly dissents from the former view; and if the right invaded is a right of property at all, there are, I think, strong reasons for preferring the latter view. In the first place, cases of misrepresentation by the use of a mark, name, or get-up do not exhaust all possible cases of misrepresentation. If A says falsely, ‘These goods I am selling are B’s goods,’ there is no mark, name or get-up infringed unless it be B’s name, and if he falsely says, ‘These are B’s ‘goods of a particular quality,’ where the goods are in fact B’s goods, there is no name that is infringed at all. ‘ and ‘Further, it is extremely difficult to see how a man can be said to have property in descriptive words, such as ‘Camel Hair’ in the case of Reddaway v. Banham where every trader is entitled to use the words, provided only he uses them in such a way as not to be calculated to deceive. Even in the case of what are sometimes referred to as Common Law Trade Marks the property, if any, of the so-called owner is in its nature transitory, and only exists so long as the mark is distinctive of his goods in the eyes of the public or a class of the public.’
Judges:
Lord Parker of Waddington
Citations:
84 LJ Ch 449, (1915) 32 RPC 273
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Reddaway and Co Ltd v Banham and Co Ltd HL 1896
The plaintiff manufactured and sold Camel Hair Belting. The defendant also began to sell belting made of camel’s hair in the name of Camel Hair Belting. The trader claimed a right in the term ‘Camel Hair’.
Held: The term was descriptive. Where . .
Cited – Burgess v Burgess 1853
The plaintiff had carried on a business selling ‘Burgess’s Essence of Anchovies’. His son set up a business with a similar name and purpose.
Held: the court would not restrain the use of his own name by a person in trade, save only if an . .
Cited – Iron-Ox Remedy Company Ld v Co-operative Wholesale Society Ld 1907
The plaintiffs, manufactureres of ‘Iron-Ox Tablets’ complained that defendants were selling ‘Iron Oxide Tablets’. The defendants had been unable to obtain the plaintiffs goods for sale and therefore sourced and resold tablets containing Iron oxide, . .
Cited by:
Cited – Cadbury-Schweppes Pty Ltd And Others v Pub Squash Co Pty Ltd PC 13-Oct-1980
(New South Wales) The plaintiff had launched and advertised a soft drink. A year later, the defendant launched a similar product using similar names, styles and advertising, but then registered trade marks. The plaintiff sought damages, and for the . .
Cited – Reed Executive Plc, Reed Solutions Plc v Reed Business Information Ltd, Reed Elsevier (Uk) Ltd, Totaljobs Com Ltd CA 3-Mar-2004
The claimant alleged trade mark infringement by the respondents by the use of a mark in a pop-up advert.
Held: The own-name defence to trade mark infringement is limited. Some confusion may be allowed if overall the competition was not unfair . .
Cited – Alan Kenneth McKenzie Clark v Associated Newspapers Ltd PatC 21-Jan-1998
The claimant was a member of Parliament and an author. The defendant published a column which was said to give the impression that the claimant had written it. It was a parody. The claim was in passing off.
Held: The first issue was whether a . .
Cited – British Telecommunications Plc; Virgin Enterprises Ltd; J Sainsbury Plc; Marks and Spencer Plc and Ladbroke Group Plc v One In a Million Ltd and others CA 23-Jul-1998
Registration of a distinctive Internet domain name using registered trade marks and company names could be an infringement of a registered Trade Mark, and also passing off. It was proper to grant quia timet injunctions where necessary to stop . .
Cited – Erven Warnink Besloten Vennootschap v J Townend and Sons (Hull) Limited (‘Advocaat’) HL 1979
The trademark was the name of a spirit-based product called ADVOCAAT. The product had gained a reputation and goodwill for that name in the English market and the defendants were seeking to take advantage of that name by misrepresenting that their . .
Cited – Chocosuisse, Kraft Jacobs Suchard (Schweiz) Ag, Chocoladefabriken Lindt and Sprungli (Schweiz) Ag v Cadbury Limited PatC 29-Oct-1997
The plaintiffs brought actions in passing off against the defendant company in respect of their chocolate products. They objected to the use of the terms ‘Swiss Chocolate’ applied to chocolates not made in Switzerland.
Held: The claimant had . .
Applied – Norman Kark Publications Ltd v Odhams Press Ltd 1962
Wilberforce J said: ‘The basis of the action, as shown in Spalding v Gamage (1915), 32 RPC 273, is a proprietary right, not so much in the name itself, but in the goodwill established through use of the name in connection with the plaintiff’s goods. . .
Cited – Starbucks (HK) Ltd and Another v British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc and Others SC 13-May-2015
The court was asked whether, as the appellants contended, a claimant who is seeking to maintain an action in passing off need only establish a reputation among a significant section of the public within the jurisdiction, or whether, as the courts . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Intellectual Property
Updated: 16 August 2022; Ref: scu.182308
