Passing Off

Introduction Now more than ever it is important to protect the interests of your business and to make sure that these are not prejudiced by the acts of a competitor. What steps can you take if a competitor represents his goods or services as being those of your business? This is known as "passing off" and the law prevents one trader from passing off his good or services as those of another and benefiting from the reputation and goodwill built up by that business. Legal action can be taken to obtain an interdict (injunction) or compensation, or both, to protect your business against passing off.

Requirements for an action for passing off There are three things that a claimant has to establish in order to be successful in an action for passing off: -

That there is a reputation/goodwill attached to the goods or services he supplies. That there has been a misrepresentation by the other party (whether intentional or not) leading, or likely to lead, the public to believe that the goods or services offered are those of the claimant. It is irrelevant whether or not the misrepresentation was...