The Seoul Central District Court ruled Wednesday in favor of LG Electronics in a case regarding its cordless vacuum cleaner advertisement, denying UK home appliance maker Dyson’s claim that LG exaggerated a characteristic of its product. 


“LG’s advertisement is considered to have cited test results conducted by objective means,” the court said, adding there is no evidence that LG had sought to mislead consumers.

Last November, Dyson Technology filed a provisional injunction against LG Electronics, claiming the company’s cordless vacuum cleaner is described in a misleading manner and the court should ban TV, print and online advertisements for LG’s Cordzero A9 products.

The phrase in question used by LG Electronics was “the rotation speed of the motor is 16 times faster than that of a jet engine.”

LG Electronics had said that the ad was based on the result of an experiment measured in a credible setting.

This is not the first time that the two rivals have been involved in a legal dispute.

In 2015, LG filed a suit with an Australian court against Dyson for deceptive advertising. Dyson accepted LG’s claim and LG dropped the suit. A year later, LG filed another suit in Seoul, following Dyson’s press conference in which an LG model was compared to that of Dyson. 

Despite the continued popularity of overseas brands like Dyson in the local market, data from a local price comparison site showed that LG has beaten Dyson in terms of sales. 

In February, local e-commerce platform Enuri.com said that LG’s cordless vacuum cleaners accounted for 45 percent of sales in the sector in January, about 18 percentage points above Dyson’s 27 percent. 

By Kim Da-sol (ddd@heraldcorp.com)