June 2016

Repackaging into tobacco plain packaging is still parallel importing

The Full Court has dismissed Scandinavian Tobacco’s appeal from Allsop CJ’s ruling that Trojan’s repackaging of various genuine cigar products into conformity with Australia’s plain packaging laws is legitimate.

Scandinavian Tobacco is the owner, amongst other things, of the Henri Wintermans, La Paz and Cafe Creme cigar brands. Trojan bought genuine products in Scandinavian Tobacco’s genuine packaging overseas. As that genuine packaging did not comply with Australia’s tobacco plain packaging laws, Trojan removed that packaging and replaced it with packaging that did conform. Amongst other things, this involved Trojan placing The relevant trade mark – Henri Winterman, La Paz or Cafe Creme – on the packaging in the font style and size permitted under the legislation.

The Full Court considered that Trojan was using the Scandinavian Tobacco trade marks as trade marks within the meaning of s 120 by importing and offering the repackaged goods for sale. So Trojan would infringe if the s 123 defence did not apply. However, the s 123 defence did apply.

Use as a trade mark

Case law in the 1930s had established that using a trade mark in relation to goods to which the trade mark owner had applied the goods was not infringing use of the trade mark. So there was no infringement of CHAMPAGNE HEIDSIECK to import and sell genuine products marked CHAMPAGNE HEIDSIECK by the trade mark owner – even if they were a different quality to those put on the market within the jurisdiction by the trade mark owner.[1] Similarly, there was no infringement to use the trade mark YEAST VITE in the expression “YEAST TABLETS a substitute for YEAST-VITE”.[2] Numerous decisions of Australian courts under the 1955 Act proceeded on that basis.

The Scandinavian Tobacco Full Court agreed with four previous Full Courts that the introduction of s 123 into the 1995 Act – there having been no counterpart in the 1955 Act – has led to a change in the law. At [56], their Honours ruled:

In our opinion, under the provisions of the 1995 Act, a person who, in the course of trade, imports and sells goods to which a registered mark was applied by its owner at the time of manufacture will have used the mark as a trade mark. It follows that, on this issue, we are not satisfied that the position under the 1995 Act is other than as stated in Montana, Gallo, Sporte Leisure and Lonsdale.

As their Honours explained at [58]:

Section 123 of the 1995 Act gives the Champagne Heidsieck principle an express statutory footing that, in our view, leaves no scope for the principle to be given any more expansive operation by reference to cases decided under different legislation including Champagne Heidsieck itself: see Sporte Leisure at [71] and Lonsdale at [62]-[63] where reference is made to the difficulties involved, as a matter of statutory construction, in attributing to the Champagne Heidsieck principle a broader operation that travels beyond the scope of s 123. Under the 1995 Act, the question of whether or not a registered mark is infringed by the commercial importation or sale of genuine goods (what Clauson J described as “those upon which the plaintiff’s mark is properly used”) must now be determined by reference to s 123(1). If the respondent who is selling what are said to be genuine goods is held to be outside the protection of s 123(1), then the respondent will not avoid liability for trade mark infringement on the basis that he or she is not using the relevant mark unless there is something else about the context in which the use occurs that (as in Wingate) might lead to a different conclusion.

The Scandinavian Tobacco Full Court noted that was the way the English Court of Appeal in Revlon v Cripps and Lee Ltd had treated the introduction of a counterpart “consent” defence into the UK Trade Marks Act.

The Scandinavian Tobacco Full Court perceived a lack of enthusiasm for the “old” cases in the High Court’s decisions, such as Gallo, under the 1995 Act. In addition, their Honours noted their conclusions was consistent with the position expressed by Aickin J, sitting alone, in the Pioneer case:

Thus if Pioneer Australia had done no more than import the goods and sell them by retail it would have used the mark, but in fact it did much more as the evidence referred to above demonstrates.

There is no doubt that the Pioneer ruling was a landmark decision in Australia accepting the validity of trade mark licensing. For many years, however, Aickin J’s acceptance that a trade mark could be validly used to denote source in both the trade mark owner and one or more authorised users, rather than the trade mark owner alone, was considered rather problematical, albeit arguably contemplated by the definition of a trade mark under the 1955 Act[3]. That Janus-like approach appears very difficult to maintain in the face of the definitions in s 7 and s 8 of the 1995 Act.

Their Honours also noted the problems that defendants might have, bearing in mind the onus of proving the elements of the defence. However, they considered that the evidential burden could shift quickly as the trade mark owner would usually ve best placed to give the relevant evidence.

The s 123 defence

The Full Court upheld Allsop CJ’s ruling that the s 123 defence applied. Section 123(1) provides:

(1) In spite of section 120, a person who uses a registered trade mark in relation to goods that are similar to goods in respect of which the trade mark is registered does not infringe the trade mark if the trade mark has been applied to, or in relation to, the goods by, or with the consent of, the registered owner of the trade mark.

The repackaged cigars were goods which ST itself had applied its trade marks to, or in relation to. So the requirements of s 123 were literally satisfied. ST argued, however, that s 123 applied only in relation to goods while the trade mark owner’s trade mark was actually applied to them. Once it was removed (such as by repackaging), therefore, s 123 had no operation.

The Full Court, however, pointed out that a trade mark owner could legitimately use its trade mark in relation to goods and did not necessarily have to apply the trade mark actually to the goods. Examples of this could be use of the trade mark on an advertisement or a document, rather than on the goods themselves. The Full Court held, therefore, that there was no express or implied limitation in the words of s 123. The temporal requirement in s 123 would be satisifed if at some point before the alleged infringer used the trade mark the trade mark owner (or someone with the trade mark owner’s consent) applied the trade mark to the goods or used it in relation to them. At [65], their Honours explained:

The language of s 123(1) refers to a mark that has been applied to or in relation to goods by or with the consent of the registered owner. The operation of the section is not expressly or impliedly confined to a situation in which the goods still bear the mark as applied by the owner. The temporal requirement of the section will be satisfied if at some time in the past, which may be after the time of manufacture, the mark has been applied to or in relation to goods by or with the consent of the owner. If those goods are later sold by a person in circumstances which involve him or her using a mark that was previously applied by or in relation to the goods by the owner then s 123(1) will be engaged.

Section 123 did not provide a defence to the type of infringement prescribed by s 121.[4] Therefore, the words of s 123 were not to be read down by reference to s 121.

The Full Court considered that Scandinavian Tobacco’s concerns that its goodwill may be harmed by Trojan’s repackaging exercise were not matters falling for consideration under the terms of s 123. Rather, such issues would need to be addressed through passing off and the consumer protection laws.

Passing off

The claim in passing off (and under s 18 of the ACL), however, also failed. The trial judge had found the repackaging did not misrepresent that Scandinavian Tobacco had repackaged, or authorised the repackaging of, the cigars. In this respect, Scandinavian Tobacco’s own evidence was unhelpful as it appears that Scandinavian Tobacco Australia itself had engaged in repackaging other brands of cigars for which it was not an authorised distributor.

Wrap up

I think this is the first case since Montana that has gone to trial which the parallel importer has won. Then again it is also the first case since Montana that actually involved parallel imports.

The Full Court’s interpretation of s 123 is at least straightforward and avoids the complicated notice procedure applying in the EU. The “new”[5] concept of use as a trade mark apparently introduced by the 1995 Act will mean some careful thought needs to be given to “old” cases on what constitutes trade mark use, unless the High Court becomes motivated to revisit the reservation left open in [33] and [34] of the Gallo decision. It will interesting to see if trade mark owners start to explore the use of conditions under s 121 or are willing to assign the Australian trade marks as in Montana in attempting to circumvent the operation of s 123.

Scandinavian Tobacco Group Eersel BV v Trojan Trading Company Pty Ltd [2016] FCAFC 91


  1. Champagne Heisieck et cie Monopole SA v Buxton [1930] 1 Ch 330.  ?
  2. Irving’s Yeast-Vite Ltd v FA Horsenail (1934) 51 RPC 110 (HL), a decision adopted and applied by the High Court in, for example, the [Tub Happy][tub] case.  ?
  3. That definition referred to a mark used so as to “indicate a connexion in the course of trade between the goods and a person who has the right, either as proprietor or as registered user, to use the mark, whether with or without an indication of the identity of that person”.  ?
  4. Section 121 empowers the trade mark owner to impose condition which may run with the goods to prevent those subsequently acquiring them from doing acts in breach of the conditions.  ?
  5. Bearing in mind this is the fifth Full Court decision adopting this position.  ?

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Copyright Wars

With the Productivity Commission purporting to be undertaking an “evidence-based”[1] review of intellectual property arrangements with a heavy focus on copyright, Rebecca Tushnet has a timely review of Peter Baldwin’s The Copyright Wars: Three Centuries of Trans-Atlantic Battle.

For my part, I thought the French and other “romantics” invented moral rights before the Fascists (but I guess we’ll have to read the book to see how that is supported).

When the book was published, the Economist starkly illustrated the tension between the “two” systems and Prof. Johns took a more cautionary view.


  1. For “evidenced based” policy analysis, see Nicola Searle’s review of another interesting book: Paul Cairney’s The Politics of Evidence-Based Policy Making.  ?

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Calling The Pot Black

Vickery J has struck out parts of a statement of claim for misuse of confidential information and ordered that the plaintiff’s solicitors and barristers who have had access to the information be barred from continuing to act in the proceeding.

DC Payments is suing Next for misuse of confidential information. The two companies compete in supplying ATM machines to retail, convenience and hospitality venues and Next was set up by some disgruntled ex-employees from DC Payments.

Next’s General Manager, Bosma, emailed a spreadsheet of its customers to 2 other employees: Solomon and Whale. Like Bosma, Whale had been an emploee of DC Payments too. Somehow, Bosma’s email to Whale went to his old account at DC Payments. DC Payments’ General Counsel recognised the mistake and instructed her staff not to look at it, but to delete it. However, the email and the spreadsheet were included in DC Payments’ discovery and eventually information from the spreadsheet found its way into Annexures identifying misused confidential information in DC Payments’ Amended Statement of Claim and some particulars.

Next has successfully sued to have those parts of the pleading struck out for misuse of its confidential information.

DC Payments sought to argue that the information was not confidential as it could discover who Next’s customers were by going around to the shops and venues to see which ATMs were installed and by whom. That might seem questionable as use of the spreadsheet saved DC Payments all the time and trouble of going through such an exercise. Further, the judgment indicates that the information used from the spreadsheet was very much more detailed than just the identity of the customers. The Master Customer List constituted by the spreadsheet included some 26 categories of information in addition to the customer’s name, address and ACN/ABN. These included details such as the names and contact details of the customer contacts, the customer’s bank account details, the Next sales agent responsible for the customer, the number of transactions made a month through the ATM at the customer’s site, the rebates payable to the customer and the maximum withdrawls authorised for the ATM.

It would appear that DC Payments did not admit it had used the confidential information to prepare the Schedules and particulars in the amended pleadings. However, Vickery J found there must have been misuse. Essentially, the Schedules and particulars included information which corresponded to the information in the spreadsheet, including information about the Next sales representative for the customer which was not in the public domain, and DC Payments did not advance any evidence to explain how it had sourced the information.

Vickery J therefore ordered that the Schedules and particulars incorporating Next’s confidential information be struck out. This was ordered even though his Honour considered that DC Payments could have obtained the information in question through “well drafted interrogatories”. His Honour accepted that the relevant principle was that DC Payments should not gain any advantage from its breach of confidentiality. In addition, it was ordered to delete any electronic copies of the Master Customer List and destroy any documents which contained information derived from it.

Further, as noted above, Vickery J ordered that DC Payments’ solicitors and counsel who had access to the confidential information could no longer act for it in the proceeding:

Any lawyer or person within the organisation of any firm of lawyers engaged by DC Payments, or any counsel retained on behalf of DC Payments, who has seen or directly or indirectly made use of the Master Customer List, should be retrained from continuing to act or work for DC Payments in this litigation.

Presumably, armed with his Honour’s judgment, the first job for DC Payments’ new lawyers will be to draft the well-crafted interrogatories foreshadowed by his Honour. It will be interesting to see if such an application would be rejected by the potential exclusion through s 138 of the Evidence Act 2008 (Vic) as, perhaps, his Honour warned at [83].

If you have a comment or question about this post, please feel free to post it in the comments section below or send me an email.

DC Payments Pty Ltd v Next Payments Pty Ltd [2016] VSC 315

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A cylinder by any other name (except basket)

Beach J has ruled that there is no warrant for interpreting “basket” in GSK’s patent to mean “cylinder”, with the consequence that the patent was neither infringed, nor invalid.

GSK’s patent is “for a sustained release paracetamol bilayer tablet with a specified in vitro dissolution profile”. Claim 1 is as follows:

A pharmaceutical composition comprising:

a bilayer tablet having an immediate release phase of paracetamol and a sustained release phase of paracetamol,

the immediate release phase being in one layer and comprising from about 10 to 45% by weight of the total paracetamol; and

the sustained release phase being in the other layer and comprising from about 55% to 90% by weight of the total paracetamol in admixture with a matrix forming polymer or a mixture thereof;

said composition comprising from 600 to 700mg of paracetamol per unit dose and a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier,

wherein said composition has an in vitro paracetamol dissolution profile (as determined by the USP type III apparatus, reciprocating basket, with 250ml of 0.1M HCl at 37C set at a cycle speed of 15 strokes/min) with the following constraints:

Ÿ 30 to 48% released after 15 minutes

Ÿ 56 to 75% released after 60 minutes

Ÿ >85% released after 180 minutes.

I have emphasised the word “basket” above because it is a mistake. It should read “cylinder”. It was also a mistake repeated in the body of the specification. Beach J rejected Apotex’ argument that “basket” was a reasonable option for use in a USP type III apparatus at the priority date. However, none of the expert witnesses had heard of such a thing and Beach J held that the skilled addressee[1] would have recognised it was a mistake and should have read “cylinder”.

Now, the High Court has told us that a patent specification is a document directed to the public, but it is to be read through the eyes of the skilled addressee. So, for example, Gleeson CJ, McHugh, Gummow, Hayne and Callinan JJ said in Kimberly-Clark at [24]:

It is well settled that the complete specification is not to be read in the abstract; here it is to be construed in the light of the common general knowledge and the art before 2 July 1984, the priority date; the court is to place itself “in the position of some person acquainted with the surrounding circumstances as to the state of [the] art and manufacture at the time”.[2]

The courts have developed lengthy lists of propositions to implement that directive.[3] One of the propositions that repeatedly gets cited is the rule that you cannot expand or narrow the meaning of a claim by reference to the body of the specification. So, for example, the High Court in Kimberly-Clark itself helpfully said at [15]:

Where the question concerns infringement of a claim or the sufficiency of a claim to “define” the invention, it has been held in this Court under the 1952 Act that the plain and unambiguous meaning of a claim cannot be varied or qualified by reference to the body of the specification. However, terms in the claim which are unclear may be defined or clarified by reference to the body of the specification.[4]

How to reconcile the two?

Well, Beach J held that, notwithstanding the mistake, the words of the claim were clear and unambiguous and there was no warrant to substitute “cylinder” for “basket”. Warned by Apotex’ counsel, Ms Goddard, that the patent was a public instrument the amendment of which was addressed in the Act by a different mechanism,[5] his Honour summarised his conclusion at [14]:

No case expressly binds me to accept the result contended for by GSK. The hypothetical construct of the skilled addressee cannot be taken so far as to re-write or amend a claim of the specification. That conceptual tool has its limits. After all, the boundary constraint is that I am obliged to construe the claim as it is, rather than what it should have been. I accept Apotex’s contention. Accordingly, GSK must fail on infringement as claim 1 is the only independent claim. But Apotex and Generic Partners fail on invalidity.

His Honour elaborated on these conclusions at much greater length at [368] – [401].

Beach J’s rejection of the attacks on invalidity did not turn on whether “basket” meant “basket” or “cylinder”. Having found that “basket” did mean “basket”, the attacks on fair basis, sufficiency and lack of clarity necessarily failed. However, his Honour would also have rejected them even if “he had found ”some polytropic fairy dust“ could transform ”basket“ into ”cylinder”.

 

If you have a comment or a question, please feel free to post it in the comments section. Or, if you would prefer, email me.

GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare Investments (Ireland) (No. 2) Limited v Apotex Pty Ltd [2016] FCA 608


  1. or “person skilled in the art” to use the language of the Act in s 7. Section 40 wants the person to be skilled in the relevant art, but that shouldn’t be much, if at all, different.  ?
  2. The citations have been omitted, but they included Samuel Taylor Pty Ltd v SA Brush Co Ltd (1950) 83 CLR 617 at 624?625; Welch Perrin & Co Pty Ltd v Worrel (1961) 106 CLR 588 at 610; Sunbeam Corporation v Morphy-Richards (Aust) Pty Ltd (1961) 180 CLR 98 at 102; Populin v HB Nominees Pty Ltd (1982) 41 ALR 471 at 476.  ?
  3. Sheppard J referred to 10 in Decor v Dart. Hely J identified a raft in Beltreco starting at [70]. The Full Court was rather more succinct at [67] in Jupiters.  ?
  4. The citations I have omitted again include reference to Welch Perrin at 610. This rule is Sheppard J’s second proposition, referred to by Hely J at [74] and elaborated at [76] to [78]and the 4th proposition in Jupiter’s.  ?
  5. Presumably, s 104 and, in the court proceeding context, s 105.  ?

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The Consumer Guarantees in the ACL apply to computer games downloaded from overseas’ vendors

The ACCC – the consumer watchdog – has successfully sued Valve for misleading or deceptive conduct in relation to its Steam gaming platform. The representations were along the lines of statements made in the terms and conditions like:

“ALL STEAM FEES ARE PAYABLE IN ADVANCE AND ARE NOT REFUNDABLE IN WHOLE OR IN PART”.

The ACCC’s case was that such statements were misleading because they were inconsistent with a consumer’s rights to return defective goods and receive a refund. These rights arose (in the case of defective goods) since s 54 of the Australian Consumer Law incorporates into all supplies of goods in trade or commerce to consumers in Australia a guarantee that the goods are of acceptable quality. If they are not, s 259, amongst other things, confers a right of action for compensation where the deficiency in quality could not be remedied or was a major failure and s 263 provides an entitlement to a refund.

Valve is based in Washington State, USA. It argued its arrangements with Australians were not subject to the Australian Consumer Law. There were 3 reasons:

  1. Valve’s conduct did not occur in Australia and it did not carry on business in Australia;
  2. The Steam Subscriber Agreement was governed by the law of Washington State in the USA and so the Australian Consumer Law did not apply; and
  3. The software games were not “goods”.

Conflicts of law rules did not exclude Australian Consumer Law

In (very) broad terms, section 67 of the Australian Consumer Law says that the consumer guarantee provisions of the Australian Consumer Law continue to apply where the proper law of the contract would be Australia (but for the terms of the contract which provide otherwise) or the terms of the contract provide that the laws of some other country govern the contract.

As noted above, Valve’s contract with subscribers (i.e., someone who “buys” a game through Steam to download or play) provided that the governing law of the contract was the law of the state of Washington in the USA and its courts had exclusive jurisdiction.

The parties accepted that this clause could not be relied on in face of s 67. However, Valve argued that nonetheless the “proper law” of the contract was the law of the state of Washington and not somewhere in Australia.

Edelman J noted that at common law, the proper law of a contract was that which had the closest and most real connection with the transaction. This was determined by consideration of:

matters including (i) the places of residence or business of the parties, (ii) the place of contracting, (iii) the place of performance, and (iv) the nature and subject matter of the contract (437). Each of these is considered in turn.

Valve’s customers, at least those who gave evidence for the ACCC, were resident in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania. Valve, however, had its offices in Washington State, USA and did not have offices in Australia. Edeleman J acknowledged also that it was seeking to enter into contracts with people from all over the world and was aiming to do so on consistent terms.

His Honour next considered that the place of contracting was Washington State as that was the place where the electronic communication from the customer was received to form the contract. That is, presumably, the transaction was one where the customer made an offer to “buy” the game and the contract was formed when Valve accepted the transaction in Washington State.[1]

So, while the proper law of the contract was Washington State, USA, s 67 of the ACL applied.

Valve was carrying on business in Australia

Even though his Honour found that the proper law of the contract was Washington State in the USA, Edelman J nonetheless found that Valve both engaged in conduct in Australia and was carrying on business in Australia and so subject to the Australian Consumer Law.

You can see where this is going at [4]:

…. There are some difficult issues involved in determining whether “conduct” is in Australia, but even if Valve’s conduct was not conduct in Australia, the Australian Consumer Law would apply if Valve carried on business in Australia. Valve said that it does not carry on business in Australia despite Valve (i) having more than 2 million user accounts in Australia, (ii) generating potentially millions of dollars in revenue from Australia, (iii) owning, and using, servers in Australia, with original retail value of US $1.2 million, (iv) having relationships with businesses in Australia, and (v) paying tens of thousands of dollars monthly to Australian companies in expenses for running its business in Australia.

conduct in Australia

Despite the difficulties in determining where conduct takes place, Edelman J was able to find that Valve engaged in conduct in Australia. The conduct in question was the making of representations. The representations were made in the place(s) where they were received (otherwise, if no-one saw or heard the representation, there would be no conduct). Here, however, representations about “no refunds” were made directly to customers in Australia in “chat” sessions and when they signed up for accounts and “bought” games to download: [2]

…. The purchase of a game also required a consumer to click on a box that agreed to the terms of the SSA. The consumer provided Valve with his or her location as Australia at the time of purchase. Indeed, Valve priced some games differently in Australia (ts 120–121). The consumer might be told by Valve that “This item is currently unavailable in your region” (Court Book 347).

carrying on business in Australia

Accepting that “carrying on business” could have different meanings depending on the context, Edelman J accepted the approach advanced earlier by Merkel J in Bray:

… the ordinary meaning of “carrying on business” usually involves (by the words “carrying on”) a series or repetition of acts. Those acts will commonly involve “activities undertaken as a commercial enterprise in the nature of a going concern, that is, activities engaged in for the purpose of profit on a continuous and repetitive basis” ….

That was undoubtedly the case here. See the matters referred to in paragraph 4 above.[3]

Software downloads are “goods”

Computer programs are specifically included in the definition of “goods” for the purposes of the ACL. Valve argued, however, that what it was really supplying were services including the motion picures and audio which portrayed the images and sounds which the gamer interacted with.

Edelman J agreed that the film and audio files were not a computer program for these purposes, adopting the definition of a computer program as a set of instructions from the Copyright Act.

Under the ACL, however, it is not a question whether the supply is substantially a supply of services. Rather, the question is whether or not it involves a supply of goods. If so, the way the definitions are written, it doesn’t matter whether there is also a supply of services.

Valve further contended that it did not supply goods as all the subscriber had was a licence to use the software and, citing Cowell, a bare licence is purely a contractual right; not the supply of any property. One problem with this argument was that s2 of the ACL defined supply to include lease, hire or hire-purchase; terms sufficiently wide to encompass a licence. Another problem was that the argument did not take into account that subscribers could download games to play offline. They “physically” had the goods.

Valve therefore breached the consumer warranties implied by the ACL into each arrangement.

Interesting question whether foreighn companies systematically supplying goods or services over the internet to Australia will need to be registrered as a foreign company carrying on business in Australia under s 601CD of the Corporations Act? One may wonder about the practical ramifications flowing from that.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Valve Corporation (No 3) [2016] FCA 196 (Edelman J)


  1. OK, that is an old-fashioned characterisation of the contractual formation, but Edelman J relied more specifically on UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Commerce 1996 with additional article 5bis as adopted in 1998 and the electronic transaction provisions in Australian laws such as Electronic Transactions Act 1999 (Cth) s 14B.  ?
  2. Ward Group v Brodie & Stone was distinguishable, at least because in Valve, there were (2.2 million) real purchasers. Gutnick was also distinguished as directed to different issues.  ?
  3. Catalogued again at [199] – [204].  ?

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