It’s only two weeks till a judgement is finally heard in the High Court regarding the case brought by Dyson against Qualtex for producing “copy” spares for the controversial British brand.
The outcome is expected to be a “split decision” which will, in effect, mean that Qualtex may well still be able to produce Dyson compatible spares with impunity.
This is not the first time that such a case has been brought, Qualtex has also been in the courts before (if memory serves me correctly) when Hoover decided to sue for copyright infringment or a case of that ilk, a number of years ago.
Given that there are many such “clones” out there for spares in various sectors of industry it seems unlikely that Dyson will get their way on this and be able to ban anyone else from producing alternative spares for their products. But Dyson seem to aggresively protect any information or sales on any of their products. For example there is no information whatsoever in the trade in respect to the Dyson washing machine, it seems that the independent trade is being snubbed by Dyson.
Of course Dyson are not alone in employing these tactics, many manufacturers now refuse to give technical help out to the trade or even their own customers and instead insist that they deal with any service issues, irrespective of the cost. Sadly the only way to show these companies that it is the wrong approach to the issue is not to buy them in the first place, or replace it with a product from a more consumer focussed manufacturer, or at least one that focusses less on fleecing its customers.
We shall await the verdict on this case in anticipation and publish the result as soon as we know what it is.
Kenneth Watt
This article is the personal opinion and comment of the author and not the view of any company or organisation
Hoover have learned to live with this situation (I think they originally took issue over Door Gaskets?) And Dyson should take note and regard it as a compliment over cloning, taken by many as acknowledgement of a product that will grow in popularity simply because of the greater availability of spares, wherever they come from!