I had assumed that the McCambridge v. Brennan brown bread case was solely one of intellectual property infringement but the judgment of Mr Justice Peart, which has now been published, shows that there is more to it (an Irish Times report of the case is here).

Indeed, Peart J notes that McCambridge do not “have any proprietary rights as such over that type of re-sealable bag, its shape or indeed the shape and size of the loaf of bread inside.” The company itself accepted that it does have such proprietary rights, nor rights over the shape and colour or ingredients of the bread itself.

Notwithstanding that, Peart J agreed that the overall impression on consumers satisfied the conditions for passing off (a form of action used to protect unregistered intellectual property rights).

[I]t would take more care and attention that I believe it is reasonable to attribute to the average shopper for him or her not to avoid confusion between the two packages when observed on the shelf, especially when these are placed adjacently or even proximately so.

Peart J indicated that an injunction should be granted to prevent further passing off. However, the interesting element of the case comes next: he also considered whether McCambridge are entitled to an injunction under section 71 of the Consumer Protection Act 2007 on the basis that Brennans were engaging in a misleading commercial practice.

The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation recently announced a planned overhaul of consumer legislation, arguably ignoring that the 2007 Act was supposed to be just that (I wrote about it here in April 2011). The 2007 Act was quite significant, but appears to have been barely used, particularly by the National Consumer Agency. Indeed, Peart J states that they held a watching brief in McCambridge v. Brennan but, strangely, adopted “a neutral position”.

(The failure of the Agency to adopt a position is reminiscent of the refusal of the Data Protection Commissioner to involve his office in the EMI v. eircom case. Ironically, he recently went on to order eircom to halt the three-strikes system which resulted from that case.)

Peart J decided that McCambridge were not entitled to an injunction under section 71, apparently (my interpretation) on the basis that the design of its packaging was not a commercial practice involving marketing or advertising.

Peart J was to hear the parties in relation to the exact terms of his proposed injunction, but the decision to grant an injunction has since been appealed to the Supreme Court by Brennans.

As stated, my interpretation of Peart J’s comments (at paragraph 45) is that an injunction was not available because packaging was not “marketing or advertising”. I would have thought that the European Communities (Misleading and Comparative Marketing Communications) Regulations 2007 were aimed at preventing misleading advertising and that the (quite similar) provisions of the 2007 Act were of broader application such as would capture packaging. The 2007 Act is the Irish implementation of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive which, in the UK, was implemented by statutory instrument. Guidance from the UK’s Office of Fair Trading gives the following example of a prohibited practice:

A trader designs the packaging of shampoo A so that it very closely resembles that of shampoo B, an established brand of a competitor. If the similarity was introduced to deliberately mislead consumers into believing that shampoo A is made by the competitor (who makes shampoo B) – this would breach the [Regulations].

Of course, Peart J had decided that Brennans’ passing off was not deliberate, and so could not have found them to have intended to “deliberately mislead consumers”. Nevertheless, it appears to be a case where the views of the Consumer Protection Agency would have been of use.

• Intellectual Property