By Staff Reporter
news@alexreporter.co.za
The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) on Friday dismissed an appeal by Koni Multinational Brands against a court order that its Connie men’s shower gel was similar to the Nivea equivalent.
Koni is a recent supplier of body care products and was established in 2012 by actor, presenter and model Connie Ferguson and Joseph Nchabeleng.
The high court in 2019 interdicted Koni Multinational Brands from competing unlawfully with Nivea by passing off Connie’s men shower gel products as being those of Nivea.
The SCA said the Pretoria high court’s conclusion that the Connie shower gel was created from aspects of the “get-up” of the Nivea men shower over time, calculated to pass it off as belonging to a range of products belonging to Nivea, cannot be faulted.
The “get-up” of a product denotes the form in which the brand owner presents its product to the market.
The get-up typically includes the labelling and packaging of a product and consists of a number of features such as colour combinations, graphics and other design elements.
International skin care products company Beiersdorf alleged Koni was making use of a get-up for the Connie shower gel that was likely to cause confusion in the market as to the source of the shower gel or as to its connection or relationship with Nivea.
Koni launched the Connie body care range of products for women in 2014, followed by a men’s product range a year later.
In July 2017, Beiersdorf’s attorneys wrote to Koni protesting that it was manufacturing and offering for sale the Connie men shower gel which was confusingly similar to Nivea’s products.
Beiersdorf’s lawyers said this constituted passing-off.
Koni denied this and stated that the different names of the products were sufficient to distinguish the products.
Beiersdorf obtained an interdict which also ordered Koni to remove such get-up from all packaging, signage, printed material, websites, and social media platforms under its control.
Koni appealed against that judgment.
In a judgment passed on Friday, the majority of the court agreed with the high court that Connie men’s shower gel was confusingly similar to Nivea’s.
