When I read about the UK Dyson case where hoover invertor Dyson lost out to Chinese company Wax over the design of a type of vacuum cleaner, my first thought was that the two products weren’t similar at all. The two vacuum cleaners seen below do not look similar to me (or the UK appeal court). Dyson is on the left.
I decided to test the story on a non-vacuum cleaner expert: my 15-yr old daughter. I asked her the question “are these two products produced by the same company?†Her unwavering answer was: Yes. So maybe Dyson has a case anyway.
The level of design freedom seen in light of the functional features is a center point of the case. The judges come to the conclusion that VAX has not crossed the line between features decided by functionality and features purely based on design purposes.
Â
Â