AFL, store in clothes battle

Alex de Vos
The AFL has launched legal action against a Geelong discount retailer over a clothing range.
A spokesperson said yesterday that the AFL was suing Geelong-based Dimmeys for the “biggest-ever” breach of the league’s merchandising trademarks.
“In our view, the merchandise is being passed off as products from our clubs when obviously they’re not,” the AFL spokesperson said.
He alleged Dimmeys had been in breach of trademark laws for a “couple of weeks”.
The spokesperson said solicitors acting for the AFL had lodged a writ in the Federal Court yesterday seeking to force Dimmeys to hand over tonnes of stock.
The writ also ordered the company to stop selling and advertising dozens of affected product lines and to pay unspecified damages.
Dimmeys had not returned the Independent’s call for comment before the paper went to press yesterday.
But a Melbourne newspaper reported Dimmeys company compliance officer Ken Hampson as saying the AFL’s legal action was “unwarranted”.
Mr Hampson told the paper that Dimmeys would continue selling the stock.
“We cannot see that anything has been done to infringe their trademarks…we have a compliance practice that makes sure these problems don’t crop up. The AFL owns trademarks but it doesn’t own every bird that exists in Australia. It doesn’t own every magpie.”
The AFL’s statement of claim alleged the clothing for sale in the company’s Supportergear Footy range breached the Trademarks, Designs, Trade Practices and Fair Trading acts.