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Background
Sun Salt owns the registered trade mark SUN for salt (registration no. 1992/01261). It has provided salt and related products for industrial, agricultural and household purposes under the SUN mark in South Africa for decades. Afrormosia also produces salt and used the unregistered mark ROYAL SUN on its salt products. Sun Salt sued for infringement and won. Afrormosia appealed.
Legal Dispute
On appeal, the central issue was whether ROYAL SUN, used for salt, was confusingly similar to SUN.
Afrormosia argued that ROYAL SUN looks and feels different: two words vs. one, with ROYAL said to dominate, accompanied by crown and eclipse imagery, and different packaging. It stressed that "sun" is widely used in commerce, while "royal" is fanciful for salt.
The court was not persuaded. It found that SUN is entirely incorporated in ROYAL SUN, the marks share obvious visual and phonetic overlap, and in the salt aisle, those commonalities matter. The court also noted overlapping colour palettes across the competing packs—red, blue and white—amplifying the likelihood of confusion in real‑world shopping conditions.
Importantly, the court a quo found, and the appeal court accepted, that in class 30 no other salt product in South Africa contains 'sun', and that 'SUN' is distinctive when used for salt products. Adding a laudatory term like ROYAL does not create the necessary distance as consumers may simply read it as a premium version of the SUN product, not a different source. That is exactly the type of association trade mark law prevents.
Why the packaging and colours matter
This was not a word‑mark‑only case. The court looked at market context. Both products are salt, likely to appear side‑by‑side and both used similar colour schemes prominently. In a fast‑moving consumer goods environment, those overlapping cues can tip the scale toward likely confusion. The court found that Afrormosia could have chosen other colours or avoided "sun" altogether, particularly as "sun" is not required to describe salt. It didn't. That choice, the court concluded, was calculated to confuse.
The outcome and costs
The appeal failed. The High Court held that the ROYAL SUN mark infringed Sun Salt's SUN mark and dismissed the appeal with costs.
Key lessons
First, if a competitor's registered mark is distinctive in your category, folding it into your branding,even with extra words or elements,remains high risk.
Second, context counts. Courts look at the full commercial setting: shelf proximity, colour choices, graphic elements and the "shopper's journey" with imperfect recollection. In fast‑moving categories, small overlaps can have outsized effects.
Third, boosting a brand with a laudatory term like ROYAL may backfire if the shared core element points toward a competitor's badge of origin. Laudatory add‑ons rarely save the day; they often reinforce the impression of a premium line from the same source.
Finally, enforcement pays. Sun Salt's longstanding use and registration of SUN were central to the outcome. Registration secures statutory remedies that are more straightforward to vindicate than passing off.
This decision underscores a familiar but vital message: brand strategy must live in the real world of supermarket trolleys and quick decisions. If your new pack or name banks on the gravitational pull of a competitor's core mark,especially in the same aisle,expect trouble. Better to build distinctiveness than to borrow it.
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