Passing-off is a common law cause of action that protects traders with goodwill in their business against misrepresentations made by their competitors which confuse customers as to the source of goods or services. The typical passing-off scenario is where a trader, by the use of a brand name, logo, slogan, or packaging, deceives customers into thinking that its products or services are associated with another trader. Trade marks can be registered for signs or symbols that identify products or services as coming from a particular trader, so to be registrable a trade mark must be distinctive of a trader’s goods and not similar to any earlier registered mark, or a non-registered mark that is in use. Registration of a trade mark gives substantial advantages over relying on passing-off. The law of registered trade marks has been harmonized by the European Union.
Chapter
9. Passing-off and trade marks
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13. Economic Torts
Celebrated for their conceptual clarity, titles in the Clarendon Law Series offer concise, accessible overviews of major fields of law and legal thought. This chapter deals with economic torts. Economic torts include deceit, malicious falsehood, passing-off, inducing breach of contract, intimidation, and conspiracy. The first three involve deception: deceit is telling lies to the claimant; telling lies to a third party is malicious falsehood; misleading a competitor's customers, even bona fide, is passing-off. The other three torts all involve collaboration, whether reluctant, as a result of threats, complaisant as a result of positive incentives, or spontaneous. The chapter discusses the nature of the harm; the defendant's conduct and purpose, anti-competitive conduct; and the various ‘economic torts’ in terms of their various components: intention, conduct, and wrongfulness.
Chapter
24. Intellectual Property and Data Protection
The final chapter in the book examines matters relating to the intellectual property created and/or owned by a business and their responsibilities for the data they access and/or produce. Given the value of the outputs from the intellectual creativity of persons (software programs, books, music recordings etc.), this chapter outlines the rights available to protect them and the consequences for infringement. It first identifies the law surrounding creative ideas and work (copyright) before a product’s appearance (design rights) is considered. The chapter continues by assessing the protection of a brand name and image (trademarks) and finishes the substantive issues through examination of inventive ideas and works (patents). Confusion of the public through the unlawful use of an existing business’ name or product can result in the tortious liability of ‘passing-off’. Intellectual property is produced by employees and the consequences of employment status for the rights to exploit the property must be effectively managed. The chapter concludes with an assessment of developments in data protection—the GDPR, Data Protection Act, and the tactics available to businesses to avoid transgression of the law.
