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Timestamp: 2019-04-22 17:05:36+00:00

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TORT OF PASSING-OFF Project Assignment for Law of Torts.
Passing off is a wrong, a common law tort which protects the goodwill of a trader from misrepresentation. Misleading the public into believing falsely, that the brand being projected was the same as a well known brand is a wrong and is known as the tort of “passing off”  .
Legally, classifying acts under this tort aims to protect the right of property that exists in goodwill. Goodwill is defined as the part of business value over and above the value of identifiable business assets. So basically it is an intangible asset  .
Goodwill can be classified into two zones, viz. institutional goodwill and professional practice goodwill. While institutional goodwill associates itself with business houses, their market position, professional practice goodwill, as is quite obvious from the name, associates itself with professional practices like law, medicine, architecture, engineering and many others  .
In a passing off action, the plaintiff must prove that there is a similarity in the trade names or marks and that the defendant is passing off his goods as those of the plaintiff’s  . Remedies could include injunction or damages or both. Damage or likelihood of damage form the core all passing off actions. The concepts of reverse passing off and extended passing off also hold significance.
Extended passing off consists of those cases where misrepresentation of a particular quality of a product or services causes harm to the plaintiff’s goodwill. A famous case example would be Diageo North America Inc v Intercontinental Brands (ICB) Ltd  ., where the defendant marketed a drink named “Vodkat”, which was actually not vodka, but the marketing did not actually make it clear that it wasn’t so. The plaintiffs were the biggest manufacturers of vodka and they filed a suit against the defendants for passing off and it was held so.
Liability in the tort of passing off ultimately boils down to misrepresentation. It all started in the 17th century, in the cases Southern v. How  and Dean v. Steel  . Usually, the judges categorised such torts under deceit or defamation  .
Later in the eighteenth century, all cases of passing off were classified as cases of deceit, where the action was usually brought not by the deceived, but by the one whose mark was used to deceive. (Blanchard v. Hill  ), limiting the tort to cases where there was a proof of bad faith  .
Later, in the nineteenth century, in the case Millington v. Fox  , it was decided that proof of fraud was not necessary in such a wrong and it was from here that the actual tort of passing off began building its own definition  .
The concept of equity was largely used to realise the scope of passing off. The predominant view was that equity intervened to restrain what would be a fraud if allowed to go ahead and that it protected proprietary rights. This particular viewpoint led to the equity courts to awarding compensations instead of injunctions. This idea was based on the theory that, in such a tort, constructively, the defendant was an agent of the plaintiff  .
Later, in the case Cartier v. Carlile  , it was decided that a “man must be taken to intend” the natural consequences of his act and mere proof of likelihood of deception was sufficient to prove the wrong.
In Edelsten v. Edelsten  , it was put forth that mere notice of plaintiff’s rights satisfied the requirement of fraud and a man could be held liable in such a case whether or not his actions were honest.
The final question would be, if the defendant was unaware of the existence of the plaintiff or his brand, would he still be liable for such a tort. The question remained open ended for a long time and at one point, the authorities were opposed to the imposition of liability in such a case. But as of now, the motive of the defendant is not very important in such an action. The only thing that needs to be proved is the reputation established by the plaintiffs  .
Erven Warnink B. V. v. J. Townend & Sons  is popularly known as the Dutch Advocaat case. This was the first case where basic elements of passing off were first put forth. Lord Fraser, while delivering the judgment had listed five principles of such a tort, which have already been discussed.
Reckitt & Colman Products Ltd. v. Borden Inc.  is popularly known as the Jif Lemon case. The judgment in this case finally formulated three basic principles of the tort of passing off.
Trademark is a company’s identity enabling a customer to distinguish products under that trademark according to the goodwill of the company and quality of the products. Trademarks help the owners to avoid their competitors from using the trademark to their own benefit. The most important and significant point is that the name and reputation of a company is deeply rooted within the trademark. A company cannot afford to let any other person misuse its trademark and in the process harm the reputation, goodwill, and not to forget the business, which must have taken years to become solid  .
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