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Boots is being sued by a travel accessories company that claims travel pillows sold by the UK retailer imitate its “particularly ergonomic” design and breach its intellectual property rights.
Travel Blue has launched a lawsuit against Boots at the High Court in London, demanding the beauty and health retailer stop infringing its design. It has called for unquantified damages and wants Boots to destroy or hand over unsold pillows.
U-shaped pillows have existed since at least the 1920s, when Elizabeth Millson of New York patented one in the US for use in baths.
Together with noise-cancelling headphones, the modern version has become a fixture of long-haul economy class flights. The neck-supporting products offer a degree of comfort — and the promise of sleep — to passengers confronted with limited leg room and barely reclining seats.
Travel Blue’s lawsuit, which was filed in September, recognises that all travel pillows need to “fit around a person’s neck, to provide support for that person’s neck whilst travelling and to be transportable”.
However, the legal claim states that specific elements of some pillows sold by Boots mean they infringe on a design that Travel Blue has registered with the UK’s Intellectual Property Office.
Nicholas Caddick KC, representing the UK accessories company, said in court papers that Travel Blue’s design had “significant features” that created an “overall impression of a particularly ergonomic and comfortable travel pillow with flowing rather than rigid lines”.
He set out a range of similarities between Travel Blue’s design and Boots’, including legs that had “a bulbous appearance accentuating the support” to the sides of the user’s head.
Caddick continued: “When viewed from the rear, an undulating top profile with a concave centre section flanked by raised lateral support points, once again, giving the appearance of enhanced support for the wearer’s head and neck”.
A Boots spokesperson said “We don’t believe the claim has any merit and will be strongly defending our position.” According to court records the company has retained law firm Browne Jacobson to defend it in the case. Defence documents have yet to be filed with the court.
Boots operates stores in several UK airports among about 1,800 stores, selling travel essentials and health and beauty products.
The chain, formerly part of US-listed Walgreens Boots Alliance, became a standalone entity this year after private equity group Sycamore Partners took WBA private and split off the international health and beauty retailer and drug wholesaling business as The Boots Group.
Travel Blue, founded in 1987, is a family-owned business and sells its products through a wide range of airport duty free outlets as well as luggage and bag shops and department stores around the world, as well as online.