Boost Mobile took their old supplier to court earlier this week. With Optus’ “Mobile Boost” still in the testing stage, Boost Mobile took them to court for copyright infringement.
The Judge ruled in Boost’s favour. Here’s the story of how it all happened.
What is (well, was) Optus’ Mobile Boost?
Since the great Optus hack in the summer of 2022, the telco has been trying to stop people from leaving and completely ruining its reputation. One way they’ve done this is by launching their Mobile Boost and NBN Boost schemes.
These allowed people to pay extra money for faster internet. Those with Optus’ NBN could pay $5 for 24 hours of Optus’ top NBN speeds. And if you were on Optus Mobile, you could pay $2 for 1 hour of the fastest 4G and 5G that Boost offers.
Why was Boost Mobile annoyed?
One of Telstra’s MVNOs, Boost Mobile, thought that Optus calling their product ‘Mobile Boost’ would be too close to their name. Because both were in the same industry, it could cause some confusion among certain customers.
Optus, however, disagreed. They said that because Optus’ Mobile Boost was a post-paid product and Boost Mobile was a prepaid Telco, they were in different categories, and there was no infringement. This notion of “different categories” is why there has never been a case between Cadbury’s Chocolate and Boost Mobile.
But, the final decision lay with the courts.
What the Court Decided
Boost took the matter to the Federal Court in Sydney. Here, Justice Thawley ruled in Boost’s favour, stating that Optus needed to stop using the term “Boost” until a trademark dispute could be heard.
During the case, Boost’s lawyers argued that Optus has no right to use the following terms: Optus Boost, Opus Mobile Boost, or Mobile Boost.
The Judge agreed that had Optus used ‘boost’ as a verb in lowercase, there would be no problem. So, they could have said, “This service will boost your data speed”. However, capitalising the B and using it as the product name was unacceptable.
What will Optus do now?
Optus has two choices.
The first option is to go through with a trademark dispute. They will take it to the Australian National Court to prove that Justice Thawley was wrong. However, this option is improbable. The Judge even said Boost would have a strong case in this event.
Option B is that Optus drops the name and chooses something else. Although Option B is almost guaranteed, they have yet to determine how long they will have to change the name.
Why this mistake was incredibly stupid.
This might seem like the type of silly mistake that happens with large corporations. But the reality is that Optus had the opportunity to avoid it.
In May 2022, marketing executives at Boost were discussing the scheme. During this meeting, someone (nobody knows who) raised the objection that this might cause a legal issue with Boost Mobile.
The sensible thing to have done at this stage would be to talk to someone from Optus’ legal department to see what issues could occur. Instead, Optus went ahead with the name.
They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on an issue they could have resolved with a quick chat with someone from the legal department. What’s the point in having a million-dollar legal department if you allow things like this to happen?
This further ruins Optus’ reputation.
If you recall, the reason for the Optus Boost was a form of compensation for the Optus hack in 2022. Someone hacked Optus’ customer database and threatened to leak private information online.
With stupid mistakes being constant in the company, it’s clear that a significant shakeup is needed.
Their current CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin has been in the position since 2020; she presided over the Optus hack and this copyright problem. That’s two newsworthy errors she has been at the helm for. Perhaps, she ought to throw in the towel. Or maybe I am being too harsh.
Conclusion
The hits keep coming for Optus following their disastrous year with hacking in 2022. The simple reality of this story is that it needs to show more acumen at the management level. Whoever signed the Mobile Boost job title should have checked with the legal department within Optus to confirm the liability in case Boost complained. Boost used to use the Optus network until about ten years ago. The Boost brand is famous in Australia and has existed for a generation. The management team is there to apply commercial acumen to circumstances such as these. I’m not criticising an individual, but at an organisational level, this was not unforeseeable.