AVIS DE DROIT PROTECTION DES SIGNES NATIONAUX

ROYAUME-UNI
and Uniforms) Act 1926 to make commercial use of its name, uniform or badge, or of the
terms by which its members are commonly known.
A person who wishes to avoid civil liability for passing off does not need to obtain any kind
of formal authorisation.
5. Protection du signe national «suisse»
The Swiss national flag and arms (ie. the flag on a heraldic shield) are protected against
registration in the United Kingdom as part of a trade mark. It is not clear whether other Swiss
heraldic arms would benefit from similar protection; refer to point 3. d) (i) above. Nothing
prevents the registration of “Swiss” or “Switzerland” or similar words as part of a trade mark.
There is nothing to prevent anyone who wishes to do so from registering a company or
carrying on a business in the United Kingdom under a name that includes “Swiss” or
“Switzerland” or similar words.
Goods bearing a false appellation of origin (for example, goods labelled “made in
Switzerland” which were in reality substantially manufactured elsewhere) may not be
imported into the United Kingdom. As concerns goods manufactured in the United Kingdom,
a person who prepares, offers or sells them under a description to the effect that they were
produced in Switzerland, or produced, tested or approved by a Swiss entity, commits a
criminal offence if that description is not true. A Swiss competitor, or indeed the Swiss
Confederation, could prosecute such a person in the British courts. Alternatively, they could
ask the British authorities to commence a prosecution. It should be noted however, that the
British authorities show reluctance to prosecute even in respect of false claims that goods are
“made in Britain”. This is because competitively priced products are increasingly composed
of elements manufactured in various countries, especially low-cost economies, and British
trade policy demands that enterprises based in the United Kingdom should nevertheless be
able to market as many as possible of these products as “made in Britain”.
Swiss organisations such as the Offiziersverein or the Päpstliche Schweizergarde, which
might be regarded as analogous to the British public interest organisations that have been
designated under the Chartered Associations (Protection of Names and Uniforms) Act 1926,
cannot be similarly designated, because the operation of the legislation is expressly restricted,
under subsec. 1(1), to organisations created by British Royal Charter.
The extended form of civil liability for “passing off” goods as having similar characteristics to
those of a class of manufacturers, established by the House of Lords in respect of “advocaat”,
was subsequently successfully invoked in the English courts by Kraft Jacobs Suchard
(Schweiz) AG and Chocoladefabriken Lindt und Sprüngli (Schweiz) AG in respect of “Swiss
chocolate” 315 . The largest British retail chocolate manufacturer, Cadbury Ltd, had sold quite
large qualities of a chocolate tablet labelled “Swiss Chalet” and packaged with a
representation of the Matterhorn. The trial judge found it proven by evidence that a
substantial number of British consumers would have been induced by that labelling and
315
Chocosuisse Union des Fabricants Suisses de Chocolat v. Cadbury Ltd, [1999] Reports of Patent
Cases 826.
201