The old saying is that ‘if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck’. That principle served the makers of the ‘Henry’ vacuum-sweepers well recently when they were successful in court.
They had gone to court arguing that, although the design rights on their distinctive range of vacuum sweepers had expired, their appearance was such that anyone seeing a similar looking machine would think it was made by the same company.
The court agreed, which meant that another manufacturer was not allowed to exploit a design that could be easily confused with the Henry.
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