CARMEL RICKARD: Big Tobacco’s survival skills ...
Tobacco companies, like cockroaches, know it’s important to be able to adapt to changing conditions — as was shown by the ‘battle for Parliament’
Pro-health legislative curbs in SA mean Big Tobacco’s survival here, rather like that of the cockroach, depends on adaptability skills. Two giants of the genre, British American Tobacco SA (Batsa) and Philip Morris International (PMI), both showed their considerable skills at adapting to current conditions via a contest over the former’s SA trademark on Parliament cigarettes, held by Batsa subsidiary Westminster. As PMI’s own Parliament brand is unable to launch here, PMI applied for the rival trademark to be deregistered. Arguing that Batsa had not used the mark in good faith in the five years before PMI’s application, PMI succeeded in the high court. Batsa could have lost the trademark, had it not appealed. Until 2007 Batsa had not used the mark on any cigarettes or tobacco products. But in September of that year it had a million Parliament cigarettes made. After some problems, the brand was first placed in 20 Upington retail stores, catering for the "low price end of the market",...
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