A High Court judge will rule today on a row between biscuit companies Jacobs and McVities over alleged similar packaging for fig rolls and cream crackers to be sold here.
Jacobs wants an injunction against McVities parent company, United Biscuits Limited, restraining it from allegedly "passing off" McVities fig rolls and cream crackers as being endorsed by Jacobs.
Jacobs claims the packaging used by McVities for its fig rolls and cream crackers here is similar to that used in the popular Jacobs brands. As McVities has agreed to change the packaging of future packets, the case relates to 100,000 packets of biscuits, 10,000 of which are on supermarket shelves and 90,000 in warehouses.
At the close of the injunction hearing yesterday, after Rory Brady SC, for McVities, referred to the well-known Jacobs' advertisement campaign which sought to find out who "puts the figs in Jacobs fig rolls", Mr Justice Frank Clarke quipped: "I trust I am not being asked to decide that". The judge said he will give his decision today.
Earlier, Mr Brady rejected arguments by Jacobs that his client had set out to imitate the Jacobs packaging in Ireland. He said McVities was an established brand for the past 40 years and the claims of a deliberate attempt to imitate the Jacobs packaging design were not sustainable.
He said the stylistic features on the McVities packages were produced throughout the UK and elsewhere by his client and there was nothing sinister involved.
Rejecting a suggestion that McVities had stolen photographs belonging to Jacobs to use on the McVities packaging, Mr Brady said they had used their own photographs. "We own Jacobs in the UK," he said.
Mr Brady said there was not a single piece of evidence that people were buying McVities products believing them to be Jacobs. Jacobs could not claim to have a monopoly on the colouring, size or shape of the packaging involved, he said.
If McVities was injuncted, they would be unable to launch their fig rolls and cream crackers on the market for another three months and it would be next year before they would be able to launch the new version of the product, he said.