## Facts

- Philips manufactured rotary electric shavers featuring three circular shaving heads arranged in an equilateral triangle.
- Philips had long been the only supplier of three-headed shavers in the UK due to patent protection covering the design.
- After the patents expired, competitors, including Remington, began selling three-headed rotary shavers using a similar triangular head arrangement.
- Philips obtained (or relied on) a UK registration for the shaver-head surface shape and asserted that the triangular three-head configuration served as an indicator of commercial origin.
- Remington sold a three-headed rotary shaver with a similar triangular head configuration, prompting Philips to sue for trade mark infringement.
- Remington counterclaimed that the shape registration was invalid under the Trade Marks Act 1994 and the Trade Marks Directive framework.

## Issues

1. Whether the product configuration (three circular heads in a triangular arrangement) was capable of distinguishing Philips’s goods as a trade mark.
2. Whether the configuration had acquired distinctiveness through use such that consumers relied on the shape itself as an indicator of origin.
3. Whether registration was barred because the sign consisted exclusively of a shape needed to obtain a technical result (functionality exclusion).

## Decision

- The High Court (Jacob J) rejected Philips’s infringement claim, concluding the asserted shape mark could not be enforced as Philips contended.
- The court found the three-head triangular configuration lacked inherent distinctiveness as a sign of trade origin.
- The court held Philips had not proved acquired distinctiveness: evidence did not show consumers treated the shape itself, apart from branding and packaging, as a badge of origin.
- The court accepted, at least in substantial part, Remington’s invalidity challenge, treating the configuration as strongly influenced by functional/technical considerations and thus unsuitable for trade mark monopolization.

## Legal Principles

- A product shape is registrable and enforceable only if it functions as a trade mark by distinguishing one undertaking’s goods from another’s in the perception of the relevant public.
- Where a shape is not inherently distinctive, acquired distinctiveness requires proof that use has made the shape itself identify commercial origin; long market presence or prior exclusivity is not enough by itself.
- Trade mark law cannot be used to secure indefinite control over product features that are essentially functional or technically driven; technical solutions are for time-limited protection regimes rather than trade marks.
- In assessing consumer perception of origin, the focus is on whether consumers rely on the shape alone, not whether they associate the product generally with the claimant due to reputation or prior market dominance.

## Conclusion

The High Court treated Philips’s three-head triangular shaver configuration as non-distinctive and insufficiently proven to function as a stand-alone indicator of origin, and it viewed the configuration as closely connected to technical performance; accordingly, Philips could not use trade mark law to block a competitor from selling similarly configured three-headed rotary shavers after patent expiry.


Philips Elecs. BV v. Remington Consumer Prods., [1998] R.P.C. 283 (Ch. 1997)