Irvine v Talksport Ltd [2003] EWCA Civ 423
Judgement for the case Irvine v Talksport Ltd
Intellectual Property Law
My notes cover all the main cases in intellectual property law. They are arranged so that each case occupies 1/3rd of a piece of A4 paper with the name of the case on one side and the details (key rule, facts of case, notes and key parts of the relevant statute) on the other side.
I found that using 'flash cards' really helped with learning the material and allowed my friends and family to test me. All I had to do was to print out the notes double sided on quite thick paper / thin card and...
C was a famous F1 racing driver, Eddie Irvine.
D, TalkSport, was a radio station who won rights to broadcast commentary of F1 races; sent out 1,000 brochures to likely advertisers attempting to get them to advertise between races. Brochure had picture of Eddie Irvine on front, doctored in order to show C holding a radio with words ‘Talk Radio’ (former name of D) on it.
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Held:
Purpose of passing off is to protect C’s exclusive right to use of his reputation or goodwill.
Therefore 3 elements of passing off are equally applicable to cases of false endorsement.
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No need for C to show a specific or direct loss of business, at least in the short-term
suffices that misrepresentation will cause long-term damage to market value of C’s endorsement
FACTS
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On facts:
Eddie Irvine had considerable goodwill as result of popularity of F1 racing.
D’s actions were a misrepresentation that C had endorsed talksport
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Was potential for long-term damage to C’s goodwill
i.e. damage to market value of C’s endorsement
Thus passing off.