Although brief, Judge Tolmay's judgment in the case of
Helen Els and Ceroc Dance South Africa v Lezelle Pretorius
(North Gauteng High Court, 25 June 2015) is interesting for a
number of reasons.
The first is that the judgment deals with the relatively rare
issue of passing-off through the use of a similar slogan. In this
case, a dance school called Ceroc has a registration for the trade
mark Ceroc in class 41 for educational services. This trade mark is
used in conjunction with the slogan "Add some flair to your
sokkie" (a "sokkie" is an Afrikaans word for a type
of dance). Pretorius had been a franchisee of the dance school but
the franchise agreement had come to an end. Although Pretorius had
continued to make some use of the name Ceroc (see later), the
passing off issue related more to her use of the phrase "Add
flair to your sokkie" (she dropped the word "some")
in conjunction with the new name of her business, Modern Jive Jazz
Club.
