Alex’s invention made global headlines. Then he saw it at Kmart for $5​on February 15, 2025 at 6:00 pm

Alex Gransbury has been inventing for over two decades. The first iteration of his Brisbane-based business, before it was a full team of designers, was Gransbury tinkering in his mother’s garage, devising ways to improve on common household tools. There was a spatula with a serrated cutting edge that chops and stands on its own, a whisk that lies flat, a champagne cork popper (and catcher) and a remarkably efficient garlic mincer.

Then came the Fluicer, a folding citrus juicer that squeezes the fruit from either side, which won the approval of Oprah, was named one of Time Magazine’s best inventions of 2023 and shot Dreamfarm to the global stage.

But in the first week of January, a member of Gransbury’s team casually delivered some devastating news: a $5 flat-folding fruit juicer in a near-identical design had been spotted on sale at Kmart and Target.

“They’ve just taken the best-selling product that we’ve got and gone, ‘Yoink, thank you very much’,” Gransbury said. “ It’s un-Australian, and kind of disgusting and disappointing.”

Dreamfarm’s story is familiar to thousands of Australian businesses contending with the “David and Goliath” problem of counterfeiting, amid a consumer spending crunch and tightening competition. There is nothing novel about counterfeits, but the maturation of artificial intelligence, a breathless social media cycle that spawns a new viral product in the time it takes to swipe up, and a race to the bottom on price have combined to escalate the pace and proliferation of such products.

Local and global retail giants – among them Kmart, Shein, Temu, Aldi and “luxe for less” cosmetics brand MCoBeauty – have built business models that identify trending items and develop their own version, usually with a strikingly similar design.

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It is indisputably a model that works. Kmart’s in-house brand Anko makes up 85 per cent of the retailer’s total sales and is the crown jewel of parent company Wesfarmers, an $82 billion ASX giant. Aldi, which is open about benchmarking its exclusive-label brands against leading brands, is increasing foot traffic and market share. MCoBeauty, valued at $1 billion, is the top-selling cosmetics brand at Woolworths and Big W.

Imbued into the business model is the legal know-how to fly as close to the sun as possible without getting burnt. Kmart’s lemon juicer is lighter, thinner and doesn’t feature the small fins of Dreamfarm’s original design. Temu also made imitations, but pulled them from sale after Dreamfarm released a video comparing the two products.

Intellectual property laws appear to be part of the problem, not the solution. Fifteen years ago, Dreamfarm took another Australian firm to court for copying the design of its potato masher, which ultimately left it $27,000 out of pocket. It made trade-offs: Fluicer is patented in Europe and the US, where a plaintiff can be awarded treble damages, but not Australia.

“Where does that end? Are we going to [patent] it in Canada, Japan, New Zealand? No one can afford to do this,” said Gransbury.

Gransbury is concerned the momentum of dupe culture is having a diminishing effect on Australia’s entrepreneurial spirit and the desire to innovate.

“Those chains will have no one left to copy,” Gransbury said. “If every inventor is as disincentivised as we feel, being kicked in the guts, there would just never be anything new.”

Robert Parker, a former retail operator and the Australian representative for the International Housewares Association, says it’s not a level playing field. “The smaller [players] don’t have the resources to fight the big guys,” he said.

It’s difficult to know how much to invest in patenting, as those fees have to be paid before the product hits the market, he added. Then there is an issue of jurisdiction: registering a patent in Australia doesn’t prevent your design being copied in another country.

“It’s murky, it’s very messy and as a result, it’s very expensive. It becomes a legal nightmare.”

A spokesperson for Kmart said the company created products that “align back to global trends that we are seeing” for “the lowest possible price”.

“This is particularly important with current cost of living pressures – everyday Australians deserve to be able to access great products that they need at great prices,” the company stated.

The Fluicer’s design hasn’t been patented in Australia; Kmart hasn’t broken any rules.

“We conduct thorough checks during the product ranging and development process, to ensure we are not infringing the rights of others,” the spokesperson said.

‘Patent avoidance’: What’s in the way?

Cost is far from the only barrier to protecting original designs, but is often the first and most difficult one to surmount. A 2021 review into small- and medium-sized business’ ability to gain patents found mounting legal and professional service fees often came as a “great shock”, contributing to a “fear of litigation” among smaller businesses.

One anonymous industry participant accused large corporations of exploiting the system. “This is not just normal litigation strategy, but a very intentional strategy to bankrupt these small businesses,” they said.

The consequence of “patent avoidance” is a very low level of IP export, or the number of Australians protecting and taking their inventions overseas. Merely 8.1 per cent of more than 31,500 patents filed to national regulatory body IP Australia last year were by Australian residents; the rest were overseas applicants.

In straightforward terms, Australians are losing out on our own turf. “It might appear that we in Australia are using the IP rights system to enrich other countries,” the review stated.

Patent attorney Andrew Caska recommends setting aside $5000 to $10,000 over four years to apply for a patent. Those who want to push through the whole process will spend $20,000, and a “modest patent portfolio” can easily cost a quarter of a million dollars. It’s also cheaper to apply for a patent and leave it pending to defer some of the costs until you need to get it processed and granted, he added.

Caska has observed a lax attitude among some clients, who might spend $3 million developing a new device but baulk at the $7000 in fees to patent it.

“If you just release a product and you don’t do any form of protection, you give it away. You literally give it away,” said Caska. It’s a notable point of difference from American companies, which he says are more eager to own their IP, while Australians tend to prioritise speed to market.

The review’s 16 recommendations have not been implemented by either government in office since it was released. Industry and Resources Minister Ed Husic declined to comment when contacted by this masthead, as did opposition spokesperson Sussan Ley’s office.

Will Dreamfarm fight Kmart? The inventors had not patented the product before selling it, and there is a hopeless air to the response.

“Why would they [take the product off their shelves]? That’s cute,” said Gransbury. “The reality for Kmart is … they would see that we don’t have design protection here in Australia. So it’s a free-for-all.”

Meanwhile, Gransbury’s special projects manager Cate McDermott, has a new bugbear. “Can we stop calling them dupes and call them for what they actually are? It’s a blatant rip-off,” she says.

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