From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Letter from solicitors providing legal advice on a bumper overrider design and potential infringement.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 118\3\ scan0106 | |
| Date | 11th April 1938 | |
| CLAREMONT, HAYNES & CO - SOLICITORS. COMMISSIONERS FOR OATHS. TELEGRAMS: AORTA, WESTCENT, LONDON. TELEPHONES: HOLBORN 8811 (4 LINES). H.L.STUART. G.H.R.TILDESLEY, LL.B. F.C.CHAMPNEYS. Handwritten: 1023. C/G VERNON HOUSE, Sicilian Avenue, BLOOMSBURY SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.1. 11th April 1938 Wn Patents Department. [STAMPED: RECEIVED 12 APR 1938] Dear Sir, Bumper Overrider. ................ We have your letter of the 9th instant. A design merely protects a shape and the test of whether a design is infringed is whether the alleged infringing design looks the same as the registered design. In considering similarity of designs the Courts have had regard to the extent of the originality of the registered design; in other words, it is usually necessary to discover in what features the registered design is original before one can advise whether it can be said to have been copied. Applying these principles to the present case our view is as follows : The design in question consists of a dished member longer in the vertical direction than in the horizontal direction, adapted to be applied to automobile bumpers. If other people have before applied dished members to automobile bumpers for the same purpose, then the registered design, if it is entitled to any protection at all, is only entitled to protection on account of its particular lozenge shape, and a quite trival departure from that shape will probably be considered sufficient to avoid infringement. If, on the other hand, it is quite new to form such a dished member and attach it by means of a single central hole to a bumper, then the small alteration which you propose, and which would scarcely be noticable when viewed in side elevation, would not, we think, safeguard you from infringing the registered design. One must bear in mind that if you were sued for infringement it would almost certainly come out in Court that what you were seeking to do was to get as close to the registered design as Handwritten: NW{N. Walker - Patents} | ||