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In the case of Woolworths versus Sexy Socks, it appears to boil down to trust.

That’s according to award-winning financial journalist Bruce Whitfield, writing an opinion piece for Business Insider SA, after the latest accusations of design theft levelled at the retailer.

For those who are out of the loop, Sexy Socks founder Dave Hutchison believes Woolies stole his ‘Cycle’ sock design.

Woolies has denied the accusation, with spokesperson Kirsten Hewett saying that it “first used the bicycle design on a pair of boxers, which we designed in-house in Woolworths in May 2015”, and it then “extended the design across other categories”.

Whitfield points out that Woolies may have a strong argument, but it’s what has come before that muddies the waters:

Woolworths has developed a reputation for helping itself to the intellectual property of others in a series of well-publicised product hijackings. Now, even the suggestion of impropriety leads to an outpouring of social media vitriol at the retailer’s expense…

It has previously used this defence – only later to admit it was wrong, followed by an agreement with aggrieved parties…

That’s the trouble when you trash your own reputation.

For a quick side-by-side comparison, here’s an image from the same article:

As many have pointed out, a bicycle on a sock isn’t exactly a revolutionary idea, and the design itself is relatively simplistic.

Despite this, Hutchison reckons his intellectual property has been breached, although he does offer a caveat:

Hutchinson acknowledges that there are differences between his socks and those on display at Woolworths, but says the similarities are striking.

“They have changed the design sufficiently to avoid any copyright accusations, but the resemblance is uncanny. So much so that I received a number of calls from people telling me they had seen Sexy Socks in Woolworths. So I went to see for myself,” Hutchinson said…

“Small entrepreneurs are trying their best to build their businesses and create jobs and drive the economy and massive corporate giants watch closely to see what is working and then produce something very similar at a fraction of the price,” Hutchison says.

Even he admits there is a possibility that his design was not deliberately knocked off.

So, if Hutchison himself is willing to admit that the similarities may be unintentional, why is Woolworths up against it?

Once you’ve cheated once, you are always going to be second-guessed and Woolworths needs considerably more than mere platitudes to earn back its hard-won reputation as an ethical business if its customers are going to give it the benefit of the doubt in future.

Public opinion can be a very difficult thing to sway, and the Ubuntu Baba saga (far more clear-cut than Dave’s allegations) is still fresh in many memories.

You add that to stories like the one told by Frankie’s soft drinks, and people are going to be rather unforgiving.

[source:businsider]