Legal success

Iconic status for our coffee plunger

Bodum has won a case against DKSH in Australia. The court's decision might be a landmark verdict against imitations of Designer products. Read the article that was published in The Australian Financial Review on August 9^th.

Article in the Australian Financial Review:

Coffee break for Bodum
Patrick Durkin

TV comedy Kath & Kim has helped elevate the humble coffee plunger to the iconic status of the Coca-Cola bottle after a court ruled the design of Bodum coffee-making devices was protected against cheap copies.

The decision puts the plunger into an elite group of international products protected for their shape, including the Coke bottle, Jif Lemon and Henry the vacuum cleaner.

The Full Federal Court ruled that the shape of the Bodum coffee plunger was sufficiently distinctive that consumers were likely to recognise and seek out its shape.

The iconic status meant that consumers who bought from rival DKSH Australia, which imported and sold a copy-cat Euroline plunger, were likely to believe that the product was from the Danish-based Bodum company, the court said.

The judges were partly swayed by Kath & Kim which one character, Prue, advises Kim on what to buy as a wedding gift, by saying “a plunger in your Bodum's always nice”.

The court said that the joke only made sense “because of the distinctiveness of the Bodum Chambord Coffee Plunger product".

Legal experts said the decision was a significant victory for designers after a string of recent cases, such as Mitre l0 and Maltesers, in which the courts had failed to protect companies’ brands.

The decision is also believed to be the first in Australia to succeed on the basis of the shape of a product.
Lawyer for Bodum, Katrina Rathie from Mallesons Stephen Jaques, said: "Australian businesses should beware of importing or selling imitations of designer products or be ready to face the consequences."