Big Tobacco vs UK Gov in Plain Packaging Hearing

This week a battle will be fought in the courtroom over products that have been in the London market since Queen Victoria's reign. Big Tobacco is rallying against the UK government to keep them from completely removing their names through the government's plan packaging law.

Starting on Thursday, December 10, British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco Group Plc, Japan Tobacco International, and Philip Morris International Inc., the big names in tobacco, will be attending a six-day hearing to argue that the government will be infringing on their intellectual property rights and will be ineffective in reducing smoking. Enrico Bonadio, a professor at City Law School told City AM the likelihood that the companies will convince the court.

"What trademark registrations offer is the negative right to prevent others from exploiting their brand. This will still be there with the new rules: the government does not touch this right."

If the hearing works in favor of the UK government, this maybe the push that other countries need to enact similar laws in removing logos from tobacco packaging. This would possibly affect 20 countries that are following the UK or are considering the move.

The plain packaging law is slated to start in May, forcing tobacco companies to distribute their cigarettes in simple brown packaging, only to be embellished by graphic images of diseases attributed to smoking.  The advertising ban would remove the one of the last marketing tools they have to connect to consumers because of the display and advertising bans put in place since 2012 and 2003, respectively.

The tobacco companies have fought against this type of legislation before. They have tried to sue Australia in 2012 and failed. Though the Australian High Court ruled that the Australian plain packaging law was breaching their intellectual property rights, the law was still allowed to proceed because they could not prove that the government would have gained anything from their intellectual property loss. The Financial Times added that "But under UK law, companies are not required to prove that the government benefited from the policy, just that property rights have been removed."

Australia's smoking rate has dropped from 18 percent in 2012 to 16.5 percent in 2014, but the cause is up for debate. Along with the plain packaging law, the government also increased taxes on cigarettes, which could have affected consumers stronger than the packaging law did.

Even if the hearing in the UK ends in favor of the government, the fight against big tobacco is not over. According to Bloomberg, "A larger group of tobacco companies took a case to the European court in Luxembourg challenging an article within the EU's updated Tobacco Products Directive which allows member states to bring in their own, more stringent rules around the standardization of packaging. If they're successful, it will render the U.K. regulations unlawful."

What is happening in the UK is something that could kickstart a global change in the way consumers interact with tobacco products before they reach their hands. But if tobacco wins, the UK government could be forced to pay them million of pounds in compensation.