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Law Cases
Intellectual Property Law Cases
Passing Off Cases

Sir Robert McAlpine v Alfred McAlpine [2004] EWHC 630 (Ch)

Country:
United Kingdom
By Oxbridge Law Team
Held

  • Claimant and Defendant were both derived from an original company founded by Sir Robert McAlpine. After his death, two companies divided on geographical lines into separate companies.

  • In 2001, Defendant decided to rebrand itself as ‘McAlpine’ and drop word ‘Alfred’ from name.

  • Claimant sued for passing off, claiming that Defendant was misrepresenting it was associated with Claimant so that:

    1. Any bad publicity associated with Defendant would reflect upon Claimant; and 

    2. Defendant would benefit from Claimant’s goodwill and would be trading on the joint goodwill of the 2 parties, causing a dilution in value of Claimant’s goodwill.

Held

  • Is a misrepresentation by Defendant.

    1. Loss of control of reputation: is a real risk that Defendant’s actions in future will damage Claimant’s goodwill; e.g.:

      • Any noteworthy engineering mishap

      • Any work that attracts public anger

    2. Dilution: deception caused by loss of prefix ‘Alfred’ by Defendant would cause a dilution in value of Claimant’s name.

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