A decision by the Australian Full Federal Court has major implications for local companies that attempt to copy an overseas brand in the local market. It’s also good news for Internet marketers that sell into the Australian market… and may even spur courts in other jurisdictions to take a similar view…

Basically, Hansen – the U.S. maker of the Monster Energy drink - brought an action against Bickfords, a local, Australian company that had copied the Monster Energy name and concept.

Since Bickfords had lawfully registered a trade mark for Monster Energy in Australia, and Hansen hadn’t sold its drink in the Australia market, Hansen didn’t sue for trade mark infringement but instead brought an action against Bickfords for passing off and misleading and deceptive conduct under the Australian Trade Practices Act.

The court decided that although it hadn’t sold in the Australian market, Hansen had nevertheless established a brand reputation by virtue of ‘non-jurisdictionally confined’ marketing techniques, including the Internet, viral campaigns and websites.

Good decision.

It confirms legally what we’ve all known for years as Internet marketers: that brand reputation can quickly travel across jurisdictional boundaries. What’s more, the court’s decision affirms that it’s not so easy to copy a successful overseas product and then argue that its reputation has not yet reached the local market. Not if that overseas product has a strong Internet presence.

Let’s see if courts elsewhere follow suit…

Source: Mallesons Stephen Jaques, “Protecting a “Monster” reputation”, Mallesons Stephen Jaques Alert, November 19, 2008

Webmasters using the free web analytics widget Sitemeter must have been livid when they discovered why their sites weren’t loading for Internet Explorer (IE) browser users last Friday…

Apparently the problem was caused by a bug in IE that Sitemeter’s coders hadn’t counted on when updating the widget. Okay, mistakes happen. But what is unforgivable is Sitemeter’s failure to come clean about the problem to its user base.

Instead of informing its users about the problem, Sitemeter said NOTHING. As literally thousands of webmasters were left floundering, wondering what on Earth had cause their sites to be inaccessible by Internet Explorer.

Bad form, Sitemeter. Not because you caused the bug (you didn’t, it was a bug in IE). Not because your developers failed to account for the bug when updating your widget (mistakes happen). But because you failed to TELL YOUR USERS.

Sources: Nik Cubrilovic, “Sitemeter Kills Thousands Of Sites For IE Users”, Tech Crunch, August 2, 2008, Corvida, “Operation Aborted” in IE7 Because of Sitemeter”, Read Write Web, August 2, 2008