Articles
In addition to her role as General Editor of the Internet Law Bulletin and Intellectual Property Law Bulletin, Sharon has written over 80 legal articles on the theme of intellectual property and consumer protection and labelling laws, focussing on cutting edge issues.
In the past, she has written a regular by-line for numerous marketing magazines, including B & T Weekly, Food Management News and Packaging News and now writes for Digi Reproduction on IP issues impacting on photographers and is a regular contributor to other publications including for the Packaging Council of Australia and ProPhoto magazine.
Some examples of her work is set out below:
PHOTOGRAPHY
Good Enough to Eat
Food photography often makes food look delicious. But did you know they use motor oil and super glue to achieve those affects? Moreover there is also the question
of to what extent the law allows you to meddle with food and present is as the “real thing”. Read more…
FOOD LAW
Australian Dairy Foods – A dairy brand by any other name …
Many dairy brands in Australia incorporate people’s names or place names – think Pauls and Peters, Bega and Bulla. But food companies need to think twice before using a name for the first time as a brand as if it is trademarked you could be taking legal risks. Read on to navigate the name game in the food industry…
This article first appeared in the Australian Dairy Foods Magazine Feb March 2013 issue and has been kindly reproduced with their permission. Read more...
Granola
We use phrases all the time and don’t think about the fact that they could be protected as trade marks. Band aid on your finger, hoover the floor, enjoy a burgundy, lets go rollerblading, bring the Esky and so on. However remember that even your own brand name could become generic one day if you are not careful and it is good to be conscious of how to use a trade mark even once you have it registered so that this does not happen. The recent legal battle concerning the GRANOLA cereal is a reminder that we should be conscious of how we use our brand names... Read more...
Branding law: Milked to the Max
Long gone are the good old days where milk is delivered by horse and cart in unbranded foil top bottles. Today we have brands – and lots of them. Given that brands are the main differentiating feature of fast moving, low involvement products such as food, this article looks at how best to legally protect them and what you can protect as registered trade marks. Read more…
How far can you take creative claims?
Praising your food products is one thing… but there can be a fine line between exaggeration and contravening the law. The old Trade Practices Act and new Competition and Consumer Act 2010 lay down very strict rules on what claims you can legally make. This article looks at real life case studies covering descriptors such as: “locally produced”, “natural”, “real fruit”, “cheesecake” and “cream cheese”,. Read more…
Courts deny Nestle
Aldi’s 2-stick version of “Kit Kat” is called “Double Time”. Read about how Aldi successfully opposed Kit Kat’s accepted trade mark application for the four-bar “snappable” product shape for a chocolate wafter bar. It was decided that the shape was convenient to make the chocolate “snappable” and without the words KIT KAT on it – not registrable. Trade mark oppositions are common in trade mark law. Read more...
Food&Drink
Business Magazine - Courts Deny Nestle
This article looks at the way Nestle tried to register its four bar chocolate shape as a trade mark and what the trade mark office said when Aldi (which produces its own two bar wafer chocolate called Time Out). Read more…
'Legal' Battle
of the Buldge
In this article Sharon Givoni considers whether food companies may one day need to place “fat warnings” on their packaging and some overseas cases where people literally took “fat to court”. Today, with all the health and nutrition information required on packaging, health warnings are probably unlikely. Read more…
Ensuring your Soft Drink Brands Sparkle not Fizzle
This article examines some dos and don’ts when it comes to trade mark protection for beverages considering real life cases concerning brands such as “Cranberry Classic”, “Crantasitc”, “Ruby’s Red”, the “NES” family of Nestle trade marks and Boost juice marks. Read more…
Ensuring Sweet Success with your Brand
In the area of confectionery a trade mark plays a crucial role. This article goes through useful tips you need to know to protect your brand with a whole list of useful tips at the end. Read more…
The Case of the Branded Banana - A Red Hot Tip for Marketing your Product
Many people don’t know that the red wax tip of specially grown bananas is actually a registered trade mark owned by two Queensland based farmers. No one else can use it but them. One of the things that really help you to get a trade mark registration is to market the product by reference to the trade mark so that consumers understand that it denotes your mark. In this case, the banana website of Eco Pacific Bananas actually tells people to “Look for the red wax tip”. Have a think about how you are marketing your brand. Read more…
The Sensory Theatre of Food Retailing
If you love chocolate then this article is for you. It considers how retail outlets such as the chocolate café Max Brenner and Koko Black allure consumers into their store with way more than chocolate. Sounds, smells and images all assist and some of these can also be protected as registered trade marks. Read more…
ARTS & DESIGN
Inspiration... or Rip Off?
We all get inspirited by one thing or another in life including when we create art works such as drawings and photographs. Madonna got inspired by a famous fashion photographer some years ago when creating one of her video clips and then threatened with legal action. Read more…
Making Your Mark
Eagle Boys pizza has actually registered their pink glow shop frontage as a trade mark! Read on to see how you can “make your mark” by registering your trade mark even if it is unusual. Read more…
The Case for Binding Contracts
Read how the owner of a holiday resort thought that they could use the photographer’s commercial images of the report without paying him. The court punished them even more because they had ignored the letters from the photographer asking for payment. Lucky for the photographer, he had a contact with them that set out what payments where owed to him very clearly leaving nothing in doubt. Read more…
The Fine Line between Copyright Infringement or Artistic Creativity
This article looks at what happened when the owners of the Barbie doll (Mattel) took a photographer to court over the “creative” use of Barbie in a bold and daring set of photographers featuring Barbies cooking in a casserole dish and in a fondue pot. The fair use defence under copyright law came into play in this American case. Read more…
Copyright or Wrong - Ownership Issues
This article considers copyright considers for photographers including how long copyright lasts for, what can be protected and how. Read more…
Moral Rights and Copyright
Did you know that not attributing an author or artist can be a beach of their moral right? As can cutting up their photograph or painting? This artilce discusses Australia’s moral rights laws in the context of photography. Read more…
ENTERTAINMENT LAW
How to protect your movie and film titles
If you are in the entertainment industry, you would know how much effort it takes to think of a catchy title. Once you do, the last thing you want is for someone to copy it.
This article provides you with a brief overview as to the best form of protection under Australian law incluing trade marks of course, considering some real life case studies along the way. Read more…
PACKAGING
Maltesers goes to court over its malt balls packaging trade mark
Chocolate trade mark case brings no sweet success to Mars in a legal battle involving Maltesers and chocolate “Malt Balls”. The court held that although the packaging of both pictured floating malt balls, Maltesers were so famous in their own right that there was passing off or misleading conduct as no consumer confusion arose. Read more…
Maltesers
take on Malt Balls over their packaging
Chocolate trade mark case brings no sweet success to Mars in a legal battle involving Maltesers and chocolate “Malt Balls”. The court held that although the packaging of both pictured floating malt balls, Maltesers were so famous in their own right that there was passing off or misleading conduct as no consumer confusion arose. Read more…
Food&Drink
Business Magazine - Can you replecate overseas products
Many clients ask if they can just simply copy a product and brand from overseas. The answer is not clear cut and depends on the facts including if the overseas mark has been used in Australia as a trade mark. Read more…
Green Marketing
Legal Boundries
Phrases such as “Nature’s friend”, green packaging and recycling symbols are often used to show that a product is green. However there are some traps to avoid under the law when doing this. If you claim that your product is “legally” environmentally friendly you should read this article. Read more…
CONSUMER LAW
Making a case for accurate claims
Food manufacturers are always trying to boast the health attributes of their products. The question is how far is too far? When does the law say its misleading? Companies such as Arnott’s, Uncle Toby’s and smaller operators have been under the scrutiny of consumer groups and the ACCC. Read more...
Cats do love the colour purple
What do consumer’s think when they see a row of overwhelmingly purple packaging on the cat food section of supermarket shelves? According to the Federal Court, the answer is WHISKAS! You might want to register a colour trade mark yourself for retail use but the question is have you legally done what you need to do to actually get registration? Read more…
Exaggerating the Truth or Misleading : A Legal Perspective
This artilce was specifically written for the real estate industry and looks at terms such as “for illustration purposes only” and use of images that may be considered misleading … You may be surprised. Read more…
INTERNET LAW
Unauthorised Photographs on the Internet
There is no blanket law specifically stopping you from photographing others without their consent. However, specific laws may apply to the situation depending on the context. Read more…
PROTECTING IDEAS
Farmers see red over purple wax tit - How far one woman went
Red wax tip bananas are said to be tastier but another thing about them that many people don’t know is that the Queensland-based husband and wife farmers that produce them have protected the red wax tip as registered trade mark… this enables them to stop others from stealing their brand”. Read on to see what happened in a recent case...
Please note that this article was first published in Working Women Magazine and reproduced here with the permission of Womens Network Australia - www.womensnetwork.com.au
Protecting What's Special
Most of us will have great business ideas from time to time. The challenge is how you can stop others from using them and slavishly copying them …. This article considers the law of confidential information and how you can protect that in Australia. It also considers the importance of registering unique trade marks and how you can actually own copyright even if you commissioned the work from a third party and covers what copyright actually protects. There is a useful case study at the end covering a Women’s Network Australia trade marks. Read more…
FASHION LAW
Sharon Givoni Unpacks the Legal Dangers of Social Media for Fashion Labels
Fashion designers love getting ideas from all sorts of influences but what happens if you think that someone has gone too far and copied your designs? The Seafolly case decided in late 2012, shows that if you air your thoughts on Facebook and social media this can be very damaging and you could be taking big risks.. read on … (this article was first published in ATF (www.atf.com)… Read more...
Protecting textile patterns and designs
If you design or manufacture patterned textiles or fabrics, you need to be careful not to copy other people’s textile designs and find yourself entangled in legal issues. This article talks about copyright and trade mark protection of patterns, trade marks and designs in textiles (including David Jones, Louis Vuitton and Levis). Then followed article appeared in ATF Australian Textiles and Fashion Magazine (see www.atfmag.com) Read more...
Would the real Zara please stand up?
Many textile and fashion designers use, or incorporate their own name into their brands. Take Zara, Davenport, Elle McPherson and Collette Dinnigan to name a few. The more unique the fashion label is, usually the safer you are from “copycats”. However, legal battles can arise if two designers use similar names. Read on to learn more. Note the followed article appeared in ATF Australian Textiles and Fashion Magazine (see www.atfmag.com) Read more...
Fashionable
While imitation may well be the greatest form of flattery it is certainly not much fun when it is your garment or brand name that is copied by others.
In this article Sharon Givoni covers what makes a strong trade mark from a trade marks perspective, some considerations if you expanding your fashion label internationally and wish to protect
your trade mark overseas covering some real life legal case studies along the way (including the TSUBO / TSUBI case) and protecting the red sole of a shoe as a trade mark. Read more…
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