Avoiding Passing Off

By taking appropriate action to ensure that your customers are fully aware of the origin of the goods which you offer for sale when you accept an order for those goods. So for example, if a customer asks for Pilkington K Glass™ or K Glass™ or even K™ then unless you are actually going to supply the Pilkington product you should say you are not able to supply those products. What you can do is offer an alternative but you must point out that you are selling an alternative low emissivity product. Likewise if he asks for Autumn™ then unless you are supplying Pilkington Texture Glass Autumn™ you should advise that you are offering an alternative, non-Pilkington patterned glass before you accept his order.

It would not be an infringement of intellectual property owned by Pilkington to promote the sales of products in this way. If a customer orders goods using the name of a particular manufacturer or by reference to the trade mark of a particular manufacturer you need to consider whether or not you are able to fulfil that order. If you do not supply the goods of that particular manufacturer then you should make the customer aware of that fact before you accept his order.

By ordering those genuine goods by name and obtaining assurance from your supplier that he will supply those named goods. It is important that, if you are then selling these goods on to someone else, you are certain of their origin so that you do not, in turn, mislead your customer. 

If having taken the above precautions you are concerned that your supplier may be supplying alternative products in response to your order for a Pilkington product then you should highlight your concerns to us. You may do this either via your local representative or by phoning our customer contact centre on 01744 692000 or sending an email to pilkington@respond.uk.com

No. Our literature is supplied solely for the purpose of promoting sales of our glass. Selling third party glass using our literature, pattern names or brand names is likely to result in a misrepresentation to the customer amounting to passing off and trade mark infringement. If you wish to sell alternative products you should use the appropriate product names and literature and avoid any impression that the glass originates from Pilkington UK.

Using a trade mark which leads to a likelihood of confusion as to the origins of the goods may result in infringement of a registered trade mark or passing off.