Passing off is how UK law protects a name, logo or get-up that isn't registered as a trademark. If another business trades in a way that leads your customers to think it's you, or connected to you, the courts can step in, but only where you can prove the reputation you've actually built. The passing off cases below show where that line falls, and what it means in practice before you send, or answer, a cease and desist letter.
What is passing off?
Passing off has three parts, and a claim usually needs all of them:
- Goodwill. A business with real customers in the UK who connect your name, logo or tagline with you.
- Misrepresentation. Something the other side does that leads people to believe its goods or services are yours, or that you're behind them or have approved them.
- Damage. Harm to your business as a result, such as lost sales or a lost licence fee.
There's no certificate to point to, so each of those points has to be proved with evidence. That's the big difference from a registered trademark, where the register does much of the work for you.
Do you need customers in the UK?
Starbucks v Sky
A business based outside the UK brought a passing off claim against Sky, relying on the fact that people in the UK knew its brand. The Supreme Court ruled that being known here isn't enough: passing off needs actual customers in the UK. Reputation without UK trade usually won't carry a claim.
Read our summaryStarbucks v Sky
The earlier stage of the same dispute. The Court of Appeal held that the claimant's NOW trademark was invalid because it simply described the instant, on-demand nature of its TV service. Free viewing of its programmes by people in the UK didn't create goodwill that could support a passing off claim against Sky's NOW TV. A free online audience isn't the same as UK customers.
Summary coming soonInter Lotto v Camelot
This case was about timing. The Court of Appeal ruled that passing off rights are judged at the date a rival actually starts trading under the conflicting name, not the earlier date it applied to register a similar trademark. Real trading builds rights that a later filing can't wipe out after the event.
Summary coming soonWhat counts as a misrepresentation?
Okotoks v Fine & Country
A rebranded estate agency started using the word FINE in a font and style close to Fine & Country's. It was found liable for passing off and trademark infringement, and the Court of Appeal upheld that finding. Copying a rival's font, colour and layout can be passing off even when the words themselves are ordinary.
Summary coming soonLidl v Tesco
Tesco's blue and yellow Clubcard Prices logo was found to send a false message about price matching, which made it passing off as well as trademark infringement. A separate copyright finding was overturned. A colour and shape combination can be enough to win, without any words being copied.
Read our summaryFage v Chobani
The Court of Appeal confirmed that FAGE could stop Chobani calling its yoghurt "Greek yoghurt", because UK shoppers understood the phrase to mean yoghurt actually made in Greece, and Chobani's wasn't. A descriptive phrase can still belong to a group of traders if customers genuinely rely on what it tells them.
Read our summaryL'Oreal v Bellure
A dispute over the comparison lists used to sell "smell-alike" perfumes. The Court of Appeal rejected passing off and a wider unfair competition claim, but sent the core trademark questions on comparison lists and unfair advantage to the European Court of Justice. Failing in passing off didn't make a truthful comparison automatically safe.
Summary coming soonThe Arcadia t-shirt case
Selling a t-shirt bearing a celebrity's image, without the celebrity's approval, was passing off because fans would believe it had been endorsed. Putting a famous face on merchandise can be passing off, especially where your own earlier publicity has linked you to that person.
Read our summarySharing a name with an established business
Reed Executive v Reed Business Information
Reed Business Information used its own company name on its totaljobs website. That wasn't passing off and didn't infringe the REED trademark, apart from an early version of the site that had since been dropped. Using your own company name online isn't automatically a problem; the context matters.
Read our summaryHotel Cipriani v Cipriani
A restaurant in London trading as Cipriani was found to infringe a well-known hotel's trademark and to be passing off. The court rejected an own name defence and an argument that the family name's goodwill was shared. Sharing a family name with a famous business doesn't give you the right to trade on it.
Summary coming soonMatch Group v Muzmatch
MUZMATCH was found to infringe the MATCH trademarks and to be passing off. A decade of trading side by side didn't give it a defence of honest concurrent use. Years without complaints don't, on their own, prove that customers aren't confused.
Read our summaryWhy a registration still helps
Phones4u v Phone4u.co.uk
Phones 4u had built enough goodwill by 1999 to stop a rival's near-identical domain name through passing off. Its trademark claim failed, though, because of a colour limitation on its registered logo. Goodwill for passing off and distinctiveness for a trademark are judged differently, and the two can point different ways.
Read our summaryComic Enterprises v Twentieth Century Fox
A small UK chain of comedy and music venues called the Glee Club relied on its registered trademark against the hit TV show Glee, and won, partly on evidence that fans of the show thought the venues were connected to it. The registration succeeded where a simple passing off claim would not have. A registered trademark can beat a much bigger brand.
Read our summaryeasyGroup v Easy Live
easyGroup won its passing off appeal because it could claim, as damage, the licence fee it could have charged a rival auction platform for using similar branding. If you license your brand to others, the fee a copycat avoided paying can often count as your loss.
Read our summaryWhat I’d take from these passing off cases
- 1What I'd take from this is that passing off protects trade, not fame. If your customers aren't in the UK, a UK claim is usually very hard to bring.
- 2The look of a brand counts. Fonts, colours and layout can mislead people even when the words are everyday ones.
- 3Your rights run from when you started trading, so I'd keep good records of first use, sales and customers. They're your evidence.
- 4Using your own name, or years of trading side by side, isn't a reliable defence on its own.
- 5Passing off is a backstop, not a plan. A registration often wins where passing off would struggle, so it's worth having both.
If someone is trading off your name, logo or get-up, a cease and desist letter is usually the first step, and our brand protection service takes the dispute on from there. Passing off is hard work to prove, so it pays to get ahead of it: a trademark search shows what's already out there, you can register a trademark for what you actually sell, and trademark monitoring tells you when someone gets too close.
Book a free call, email enquiries@thetrademarkhelpline.com or ring 0161 833 5400.
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This page is for information purposes only and does not constitute trademark advice or guidance. Case summaries are drawn from published UK judgments; summaries drafted with AI assistance and checked by The Trademark Helpline (how we write these). Last reviewed 30 October 2026.
