Rival swept under carpet by Henry the vacuum cleaner

High Court judge Mr Justice Floyd ruled that a prototype model designed by a rival company could have been "passed off" as a Henry machine if it went on the market.

Numatic, manufacturers of the smiley-faced Henry, took action after seeing a vacuum cleaner on the Qualtex stand at the Cleaning Show at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham last year.

The judge said: "Whilst a different colour had been chosen for the base, the bowler-hatted lid was in shiny black, just like Henry."

Numatic's solicitors wrote to Qualtex asking for undertakings not to deal in any vacuum cleaners with a top in the shape of a bowler hat or products "identical or similar" to their cleaners.

Qualtex agreed not to sell cleaners with the appearance of the model at the Cleaning Show and designed a new product which Numatic had no objection to.

Mr Justice Floyd, whose ruling meant the new machine would have been a breach of intellectual property rights, said it was "regrettable" the case had come to trial.

"The parties are fighting about a product which is not on the market and which will never now reach the market..."

He said the parties had been unable to settle "due, I would imagine, to what are now the very significant costs, the responsibility for which will turn on the result of the action".