Hunters Products Pty Ltd v. R. & C. Products Pty Ltd [1987] FCA 196

Trade Practices - conduct - Names

characteristics -

CATCHWORDS

Consumer prote of products

"blue & fresh" -

ction - Misleading or deceptive having same functions and

"Fresh & Blue".

Trade Practices Act 1974 - s5.52(1)

HUNTERS PRODUCTS PTY. LIMITED v.

No. VG410 of 1986

Jenkinson J. Melbourne 27 April, 1987

R, & C. PRODUCTS PTY.

LIMITED

IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA )

VICTORIA DISTRICT REGISTRY ) No. VG410 of 1986 GENERAL DIVISION )

BETWEEN: HUNTERS PRODUCTS PTY. LIMITED . Applicant AND: R. & C. PRODUCTS PTY. LIMITED Respondent CORAM: Jenkinson J. PLACE: Melbourne DATE: 27 April, 1987

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

Hearing of questions, within the meaning of that word in

Order 29 of the Court's Rules, in a proceeding.

Each party is and at all material times has been a company incorporated and trading in this country. Each has for many years sold in Australia by wholesale, inter alia, a substantial number of products for use in domestic cleaning : detergents of the surfaces of human bodies, interior walls, domestic fittings and furniture and other chattels of common

household use.

In June 1981 the applicant began to sell an article which was new in this country both in name and characteristics.

It is a solid block of a detergent substance, housed in a small

2.

plastic cage which is positioned under the rim of a lavatory bowl by fitting over that rim a moulded strip of plastic to which the

cage is attached. When the lavatory is flushed, the water

discharged from the cistern flows over the detergent block, carrying some of the detergent substance over the inner surface of the bowl and into the reservoir of water at the base of the bowl. The substance stains the water in the reservoir blue, and discharges a perfume into the circumambient air, as well as

cleansing the inner surface of the lavatory bowl. This article is