An Australian snack food company has been given the go ahead to
sell their prepared nuts product under its unconventional brand
name "Nuckin Futs", following a legal trade mark battle
spanning 12 months.
The initial trade mark application for "Nuckin Futs"
was first rejected by the Trade Mark Office under the Trade
Marks Act 1995, on the grounds that the mark was
"scandalous and offensive "in light of it clearly being a
"Spoonerism" of a colloquial oath or obscenity. A
spoonerism is an error in speech or deliberate play on words in
which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are
switched.
Solicitors for the company argued against the objection claiming
that the name was not of an offensive nature because over the
passage of time, certain terms which may have caused offence in the
past, are now more widely accepted particularly within the
Australian market. In particular, it was submitted that the
"f-word" was now considered to be accepted as part
