Australia bans branded cigarette-packaging.

Australia finally did it, cigarette packaging will now be plain, apart from the scary graphical cancer & death warnings. They've introduced world-first plain packaging laws for cigarettes into parliament Wednesday, and brand like Marlboro will now be seen only as subliminal branding on race cars and in other sneaky ways.

The health minister Nicola Roxon are now facing a rather interesting intellectual property fight as they want to remove all logos from the packaging.

"Introducing this legislation today I think shows that the big tobacco's intimidation tactics have not worked. Our government won't be deterred from taking this action," Roxon told reporters.
"And we believe that we are on very strong ground -- although this is a world first, taking this action -- and are determined to proceed with it."

-- physorg

Philip Morris has already launched a legal counterattack last month, seeking "significant" compensation, and British American Tobacco has warned they intend to follow suit.

This will be interesting. Will the lack of logos stop people from smoking? Will smokers no longer be brand-faithful?