ADVANCED HAIR STUDIO OF AMERICA PTY LTD v REGISTRAR OF TRADE

Federal Court of Australia|1988-07-26|Before: King J, Lockhart JJ

TRADE MARKS - - appeal from refusal to register trade mark in Part A of Register - whether "Hairfusion" an invented word - whether "Hairfusion" has a direct reference to the nature or

quality of the services offered - distinctiveness of trade mark

THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA VICTORIA DISTRICT REGISTRY GENERAL DIVISION

BETWEEN: ADVANCED HAIR STUDIO OF AMERICA PTY LTD Appellant AND: REGISTRAR OF TRADE MARKS Respondent MINUTES OF ORDER JUDGES MAKING ORDER : BOWEN C.dJ., WOODWARD and LOCKHART JJ. DATE MADE : 26 JULY 1988 WHERE MADE : MELBOURNE THE COURT ORDERS THAT: a The appeal be dismissed with costs. Note: Settlement and entry of orders is dealt with in Order

IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA VICTORIA DISTRICT REGISTRY GENERAL DIVISION

BETWEEN: ADVANCED HAIR STUDIO OF

AMERCIA PTY. LTD. Appellant AND: REGISTRAR OF TRADE MARKS Respondent

THE COURT: This is an appeal from the Victorian Supreme Court

exercising federal jurisdiction*under the Trade Marks Act 1955

(Cth) ("the Act"). In his judgment of 11 March 1988 King J. dismissed an appeal pursuant to s.46 of the Act from a decision of the Senior Assistant Registrar of Trademarks refusing to

The appellant, Advanced Hair Studio of America Pty Ltd ("Advanced Hair Studio"), seeks to register the word "HAIRFUSION" as a trademark in Class 42 of the Register in

respect of hair dressing and styling services in connection

with the fixing of hair pieces to the heads of human beings. An

application for registration No. 334870 dated 2 July 1979 was refused by the Senior Assistant Registrar on 19 March 1982 following objections to registration raised by the Examiner of Trade Marks. The Senior Assistant Registrar considered the application under both Parts A and B of the Register, but the appeal to the Supreme Court was conducted as an appeal against

the Part A refusal alone and has proceeded on that basis in

The claim for registration of "HAIRFUSION" was advanced below and before us on three alternative grounds found

in s.24 of the Act. That section provides, in part:

"(1) A trade mark is registrable in Part A of the Register if it contains or consists of -

(d) a word not having direct reference to the character or quality of the goods or services in respect of which registration is sought and not being, according to its ordinary meaning, a geographical name or a surname; or

Advanced Hair Studio has, since 6 December 1976, offered to the public through various hair studios a service for fixing hair pieces to the hair of human beings. The method for affixing the hair pieces is the subject of Letters Patent No. 495,956, application for which was lodged on 20 April 1977 and accepted on 7 September 1978. As described by the learned trial Judge, the service involves "locating groups of strands of natural hair so as to extend through apertures in a

hair piece, knotting adjacent groups of strands together,

applying a bonding agent to the said knots and allowing this bonding agent to set in order to prevent the strands from unbinding, the bonding agent being capable, when set, of preventing the strands from unbinding when exposed to the normal activities of the wearer, including exposure to water and the effects of exercise. The bonding agent retains this capability until treated with a release agent to which it is susceptible." The process has to be repeated at regular

Substantial sums of money were expended on advertising this service under the title "HAIRFUSION" in the period leading up to the time of the application for registration of the trade mark. The retail value to the appellant of the service was also

fhe trial Judge in dismissing the appeal from the decision of the Senior Assistant Registrar, held that "HAIRFUSION": (1) was not an invented word; (2) did directly refer to the character or quality of the services in respect of which registration is sought; and (3) was not distinctive. We

shall examine the correctness of each of these findings in

Section 24(1) of the Act makes an "invented word" registrable in Part A of the Register. The term "invented word"

is not defined in the Act. Counsel for the appellant placed

emphasis on the fact that "HAIRFUSION" was a coined word, and hence, he argued, an invented word. However the mere fact that a word is newly coined, i.e. that the particular array of letters has not previously been used to constitute a word, is

not sufficient to establish its character as an invented word.

In Howard Auto-Cultivators Limited v Webb Industries

Proprietary Limited (the "Rohoe" Case) (1946) 72 C.L.R. 175

there was unanimity on the appropriate principle to be applied, though division on its applicability to the word "Rohoe" there under consideration. In addition to its being newly coined

"The materials from which such a word has been fashioned cannot be neglected and if it is compounded of elements of which the source is manifest and the intended meaning is transparent,

it becomes a question whether there is anything more than a colourable attempt at reproducing some

of the sounds and all the sense of an expression belonging to common speech."

Reference was made by five of the members of the bench

to Lord Parker's dictum in the "Diabolo" Case, Philipart v

William Whiteley Limited [1908] 2 Ch. 274 at 279, that the new

word "must be such as not to convey any meaning, or at any rate any obvious meaning, to ordinary Englishmen": see Latham C.J. at 179, Rich J. at 179, Dixon J. at 182-3, McTiernan J. at 185-6 and Williams J. at 187. Attention was also drawn to dicta in the speeches of Lords Herschell, Macnaghten and Shand in the

"Solio" Case, The Eastman Photographic Materials Company

Limited v The Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs, and

Trade Marks [1898] A.C. 571. Lord Herschell said, at 581: "An invented word is allowed to be registered as a trade-mark, not as a reward of merit, but because its registration deprives no member of the community of the rights which he possesses to use the existing vocabulary as he pleases". His Lordship went on to say: "I do not think the combination of two English words is an invented word, even although the combination may not have been in use before ..." (see also Lord Shand, at 585, to the same effect). Lord Macnaghten, in agreeing, cautioned that, "I do not think that it is necessary that it [the word] should be

wholly meaningless" (at 583). See also Kimberley-Clark

Corporation v The Registrar of Trade Marks (1963) 109 C.L-.R. 526 per McTiernan J. at 527.

In order to qualify as an invented word under para. 24(1)(c) of the Act, a word must be both newly coined and (to adapt Lord Parker's dictum) convey no obvious meaning to ordinary Australians. The word "HAIRFUSION" fails the second limb of this test, being obviously composed of the elements "hair" and "fusion" and conveying the meaning of the fusion,

Direct reference to the nature or quality of the services.

To be registrable under para. 24(1)(d) of the Act a word must not have direct reference to the character or quality of the services in respect of which registration is sought. The trial Judge approached this question by considering the

evidence of dictionaries and witnesses on the meaning of the

word "fusion" before concluding that the appellant's method of

fixing hair pieces achieved a degree of security and

permanence which may be said to be analogous ... with that achieved by fusion strictly so called". In its strictest sense fusion involves a blending of elements, for example by melting

Counsel for the appellant relied upon the reasoning of

Dixon C.J. in the "Tub Happy" Case, Mark Foy's Limited v Davies

Coop and Company Limited (1956) 95 C.L.R: 190, at 194, to challenge the trial Judge's approach. In that case Dixon C.J.

"Once, however, the question is asked what do the words mean and there is started a search for a meaning, a process of analysis and of reasoning by exclusion of alternatives is begun. No doubt sucha search may, without any sacrifice of logic, end in construing the words as meaning that the garments will emerge happily from the washtub. But if they are so interpreted, the interpretation is chiefly the consequence of failure to find another meaning. I venture to think, however, that a man, or for that matter a woman, hearing for the first time the words used in combination and in connection with cotton garments, would not so understand the words at once. Certainly such a person would not so understand them intuitively and without stopping to reflect and ask himself or herself what meaning the words could really possess."

These words were said to be equally applicable to the term "HAIRFUSION". It is important to bear in mind, however, observations by Dixon J. in the "Rohoe" Case, (above), where at

"But the meaning of all words is governed by their context and how words are understood depends upon

the universe of discourse. Here the scope of the use of the word is settled by the application for registration, which is in respect of cultivating implements."

In this case the "universe of discourse" is hair dressing and styling services. In reaching his conclusion as to the meaning of "HAIRFUSION" the trial Judge had regard to this context. He considered that the words clearly conveyed to the public "the suggestion that the connection between hair piece and hair is so secure and permanent that it is as if they were

As Dixon C.J. said in the "Tub Happy" Case, (above), at 195:

persons understanding the words, in their application to the goods for, in this case, services], as describing or indicating or calling to mind either their nature or some attribute they possess."

Kitto J., though in dissent, applied a similar test at 207:

"One has to look at the words as they would present themselves to the persons who are to look at them and form an opinion as to what they connote."

See also The Registrar of Trade Marks v Muller (1980) 144

C.L.R. 37 where the High Court (Stephen, Mason, Murphy, Aickin

and Wilson JJ.) approved, at 40, the test posed by Dixon C.J.

and Kitto J. in the "Tub Happy" Case. This was the test applied by the trial Judge.

arguments intended to show that his Honour had been led into

It was noted, first, that this was an application for a trade mark in respect of services, not goods. Counsel argued that whether or not "HAIRFUSION" described the result of the services, i.e. the hair piece affixed to the hair, it did not describe the process by which this was achieved. We think this point is misconceived. If the result of the service may be said to be described by "HAIRFUSION", then equally the service itself has the character or quality of "fusing" hair. Of course some terms apt to describe the product of a service may not be

descriptive of the service itself, but that is not so in this

Secondly, counsel argued that the appellant's procedure did not literally result in a fusion, i.e. a melding or blending of the strands of hair into a single entity, but led rather to a "bonding" of the hair. Thus "fusion" did not accurately describe the process at all. However, we agree with the trial Judge that in everyday usage the word "fusion" often lacks this precise meaning and connotes rather the idea of permanence and security. It might also be borne in mind that if this argument were right, and the term did not describe the process, it would run the risk of being deceptive or misleading

and thus of offending against consumer protection legislation.

Finally, it was contended that, while ""HAIRFUSION" alluded to the characteristics of security and permanence in the service, it did not amount to a direct reference to them. The presence of the adjective "direct" in para. 24(1)(d) is explained in the "Tub Happy" Case (above) by Dixon C.J., at 195

"to check the tendency which had been disclosed by certain decisions to find a sufficient reference to the character or quality of goods in expressions from which it could only be spelled out".

As Lord Macnaghten said in the Solio Case (above), at 583, a mark "may contain a covert and skilful allusion to the character or quality of the goods ... a meaning is wrapped up

It is a question of degree in every case whether a mark trespasses across the line ,between an indirect and a direct reference to character or quality, as the division of opinion in the Tub Happy Case illustrates. That case involved the term "happy" which the majority felt to be such a vague and emotive word, containing merely a "cloudy suggestion" of meaning rather than a "definite or actual" meaning, as to deprive "tub happy" of any direct reference. The same could not be said in this case of "HAIRFUSION". While "fusion" is far from precise, it is not so vague as to lack a definite meaning. In the result we agree with the trial Judge that "HAIRFUSION"

has a direct reference to the character or quality of the

A short comment might be added regarding the ascertainment of the meaning of ordinary English words. Both sides in this case called witnesses with academic expertise in the English language on the question of the meaning of "fusion". Objection was taken in the notice of appeal to the description of one of the respondent's witnesses as an expert, although the point was not pressed before us. It should be remembered, as the trial Judge correctly observed: "It is for the Court in the light of the' evidence to make up its own mind on the meaning of the word "hairfusion" in common usage." See

Burger King Corporation v The Registrar of Trade Marks (1973)

Para. 24{1)({e) of the Act makes "any other distinctive mark" registrable. Sub-section 24(2) requires such

distinctiveness to be shown by evidence. Sub-section 26(1)

"For the purposes of this Act, a trade mark is not distinctive of the goods or services of a person unless it is adapted to distinguish goods or services with which that persons is or may be connected in the course of trade from goods or services in respect of which no such connexion

"In determining whether a trade mark is distinctive, regard may be had to the extent to which -

(a) the trade mark is inherently adapted so to distinguish; and

(b) by reason of the use of the trade mark or of any other circumstances, the trade mark does so distinguish."

The trial Judge was not satisfied on the evidence before him that the appellant had discharged the onus placed on it by sub-s.24(2) to show that the mark was distinctive. Our attention was drawn to a passage in the judgment where it was said that, in view of the descriptiveness of the term "HAIRFUSION", his Honour could not be satisfied that the mark had become distinctive of the appellant. Reference was made by

counsel for the appellant to In the Matter of an Application

by J. & P. Coats Ltd (1936) 53 R.P.c. 355, where Lord Wright M.R. emphasized, at 378-379, that the descriptiveness of a mark

would not prevent it from becoming distinctive. We do not think the trial Judge would have disagreed; he was noting that a

descriptive mark will normally take a longer period to become

The question of distinctiveness is primarily one of fact for the trial Judge. We are not persuaded that his Honour erred in holding that "HAIRFUSION" had not become distinctive

of the appellant's services before the application date.

In the result, we are of the opinion that the appeal

At a glance

Court

Decision date

Before

Catchwords

Source

Catchwords

Judgment (94 paragraphs)

Parties

Legislation Cited (1)