Magmatic, the company responsible for creating the Trunki range of children’s suitcases, took its design dispute to the Supreme Court yesterday.
The firm’s senior management team have claimed that another company is infringing on their European Community Registered Design for their uniquely shaped cases.
The famous wheelie suitcases appeared on the BBC Dragons’ Den programme in 2006, and the business has since grown to achieve sales in the region of £8.1 million per year, though the figure fell to £7.7 million in the run up to the court case.
Magmatic first achieved a victory in July 2013 after a High Court judgement ruled that PMS International – the firm accused of copying the Trunki design – had infringed on the former’s design rights with their own product called “Kiddee Case”.
However, the Court of Appeal overturned the ruling, which led to the case being heard by five Supreme Court justices yesterday.
The hearing is one of the few design cases to have been heard by the Supreme Court – last year only 89 appeals were heard despite a total of 229 applications.
Magmatic’s founder, Rob Law recently launched a #ProtectYourDesign campaign on Twitter to raise awareness of the protection needed for British designers’ intellectual property.
On the same day as the case, he also tweeted: “350,000 British designers in UK contributing £16bn to economy yet copyists can get away with stealing designs.”
A number of leading British designers have supported Mr Law’s campaign including Sir Terence Conran, and Kevin McCloud from Grand Designs.
A final ruling on the case is not expected for several weeks, and it could be referred to the European Court of Justice.