Supreme Court’s IP decision may have far-reaching implications
The founder of the Trunki has lost his Supreme Court case against the manufacturer of a rival children’s suitcase, in a design rights battle that could have far-reaching implications for intellectual property.
Rob Law was famously rejected for investment on BBC Two’s Dragons’ Den in 2006 and went on to sell more than two million of his Trunki ride-on children’s suitcases, now a familiar sight at airports around the globe.
Law protected his design with a community registered design (CRD), consisting of six 3D images. His company, Magmatic, issued proceedings against a rival company, PMS International, alleging that PMS wwe infringing his rights by selling similar ride-on suitcases in the UK and Germany under the name, Kiddee Case.
However, the Supreme Court unanimously dismissed Magmatic’s appeal against the Court of Appeal’s decision to reverse the original trial judge’s finding in favour of Magmatic, in PMS International v Magmatic [2016] UKSC 12.
Giving the judgment, Lord Neuberger said: “Where it falls to a judge to determine whether an item infringes a CRD, the decision to be made is whether the item ‘produce[s] on the informed user a different overall impression’ from the design.”
He held that the trial judge failed to give proper weight to the overall impression of the CRD as an animal with horns, which was significantly different from the impression made by the Kiddee Case, which were either an insect with antennae or an animal with ears. He found that the judge also failed to consider the differences in ornamentation and colour contrast.
Acknowledging that the concept of the Trunki was a clever one, he said: “Unfortunately for Magmatic, this appeal is not concerned with an idea or an invention, but with a design.”
