Commentators upon the English common law relating to the protection of trade symbols have frequently remarked the uncertainty concerning the true scope of the action for passing-off: its place in the scheme of English tort law has been said not to have been finally determined, and its capacity for growth not to have been exhausted. It is true that this uncertainty has not prevented greatly increased use of the action in recent years; but this is no reason to be complacent, for the judicial extensions of liability under this head owe more to the manipulation of verbal formulae than to a clarification of its foundations. Inconsequence, as passing-off has come to be employed as the vehicle for novel assertions of right-such as those of groups to a shared symbol, of foreign traders to international reputations that have preceded them to these shores, or of pop stars and other ephemera of our culture to the value of their names and likenxsesses in the marketplace—the risk of important interests being ignored, simply through failing to be recognised, has increased rather than decreased.