Imperial Group v. Philip Morris

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In Imperial Group v. Philip Morris, 1982 FSR 72, the plaintiff endeavoured to register the trade mark "MERIT" for cigarette products, but was unable to do so on the grounds that the trade mark was too descriptive. Instead, it registered the mark "NERIT", without any intention of using the mark, but in order to prevent other traders from using the mark "MERIT" because it would be considered too similar to the registered mark "NERIT". The intention was to obtain a de facto monopoly over the unregisterable mark "MERIT".

The defendant began using the mark "MERIT" for cigarettes and was sued by the plaintiff for infringing its mark "NERIT".

The court struck down the registration for "NERIT" on the basis that the plaintiff had no genuine intention to use the mark (despite some "trivial and insubstantial" efforts at launching a NERIT-branded product).

[edit] References

• TRADE MARKS ACT 1995 DECISION OF A DELEGATE OF THE REGISTRAR OF TRADE MARKS WITH REASONS at ipaustralia.gov.au - Sited as a case study for this reference document.