Publications
Partners
While the company, Laugh it Off (LiO), still awaits the ruling on its application for an appeal on a case against SABMiller, another big SA brand company has threatened to haul LiO before the courts.
In the middle of the trade mark dispute is an advert, placed in the Laugh it Off Annual of South African Youth Culture.
The satirical advertorial shows a woman wiping off her blood from the floor, presumably after a beating.
Next to the woman is a bottle of a detergent resembling that of a well-known Unilever product - Domestos. Only that this one has the words "Domestic Violence" written within the arrows.
The ad also contains additional words reading: "Domestic Violence stifles all reports and charges - including sexual, physical and phychological abuse."
Laugh it Off has now received a letter from Unilever Plc and Lever Ponds SA 's lawyers demanding that LiO withdraws the advert and pay legal costs.
According to LiO, the lawyers have referred to an alleged infringement of Trade Mark Registration No 2000/01434 (Domestos Arrow Device).
LiO's Justine Nurse said in a statement that the lawyers (Spoor & Fisher) are not only demanding payment of legal costs, they also want LiO "offer up for destruction" all advertising material bearing the Domestos arrows.
"Effectively, Spoor & Fisher are asking us to destroy all copies of the Annual (Annual of South African Youth Culture) that are in your (our) possession or under your (our) control.
"We have strong feelings on the matter, and consider it ludicrous that both Unilever and Spoor & Fisher should take their Trade Mark so seriously as to want to "protect" it from the satirical use thereof in a book.
"Not a T-shirt mind you, as with our on-going Black Labour dispute, but a book. When does the constitutional right to freedom of speech triumph over the right to protect a trade mark, if not in a book?"
The Laugh it Off Annual of South African Youth Culture has reportedly nearly sold out of its 7 000 print run. The Annual is available at CNA, Exclusive Books, Juta, or Van Schaiks.
Unilever and Spoor & Fisher were both unavailable for comment.
