Tag Archives: cadbury chocolate

Cadbury lose purple case

cadbury

I have written a few times about various legal cases that are on-going to settle disputes about colour ownerships. For example, about 18 months ago I wrote about trademarking colour and the dispute between Cadbury and its competitors over the use of the colour purple (specifically Pantone 2685C) on chocolate packaging and advertising. In that blog I noted that Cadbury had lost a case in the USA against Darrell Lea but had been granted protection in the UK despite protests from Nestlé. The law is a complex matter.

However, today, in the BBC I read that Nestlé has won a court battle with Cadbury, over Cadbury’s attempt to trademark the purple colour of its Dairy Milk bars. This is a successful appeal by Nestlé to the earlier ruling. The Court of Appeal said that Cadbury’s trademark application lacked “the required clarity, precision, self-containment, durability and objectivity to qualify for registration”.

“We are disappointed by this latest decision but it’s important to point out that it does not affect our long held right to protect our distinctive colour purple from others seeking to pass off their products as Cadbury chocolate,” said a Cadbury spokesman. Watch this space!!

trademarking colour

In the US a colour can only be successfully trademarked (protected) if the colour is used as a brand identifier. If the colour is used in a functional way then the courts do not usually award protection since to do so would be to unfairly suppress competition. Catrin Turner, an expert in trade mark law at law firm Pinsent Masons has said:

“Colour of packaging, for example from yellow or silver for butter, to purple or red for chocolate, create powerful connections for consumers. Having the colour monopoly granted by a registered trade mark creates real practical barriers for competitors wanting to sit within a class of products which consumers expect to be coloured a particular way.”

In my colour branding lectures at the University of Leeds I illustrate this with several high-profile examples such as Cadbury purple.

In 2008 the Federal Courts in USA dismissed a claim by Cadbury Schweppes that a competitor, Darrell Lea, had used purple on their chocolate packaging to pass their products off as Cadbury chocolate. One of the issues here is that purple is used functionally on chocolate packaging since it conveys richness and opulence. Indeed, Darrell Lea have been using the colour purple with their chocolate products since 1927. It is an obvious choice. It was a costly loss for cadbury; five years in court and undoubtedly millions of dollars in legal costs. However, the law in these matters is complex and varies from country to country. In November 2011 a UK court allowed Cadbury protection for their purple (Pantone 2685C) despite protests from Nestlé. In the UK a colour can be trade marked only if the company can show that the colour has acquired distinctive character through use. Interestingly, Cadbury were only granted protection for certain products (chocolate bars, for example) rather than being granted exclusive use of the colour for all of their products.

I was interested to read another fascinating case this week – Christian Louboutin’s red, used as a brand identifier on the soles of its women’s shoes. Louboutin registered its shade of red with the US Patent and Trademark Office in 2008, and is now trying to prevent competitor Yves Saint Laurent from selling scarlet-soled shoes of its own. The fashion house says YSL’s copycat soles threaten to mislead the public. The district judge in the case ruled to deny Louboutin’s request for a preliminary injunction that would prevent YSL from selling the red-soled shoes from its 2011 collection, saying:

Because in the fashion industry color serves ornamental and aesthetic functions vital to robust competition, the court finds that Louboutin is unlikely to be able to prove that its red outsole brand is entitled to trademark protection, even if it has gained enough public recognition in the market to have acquired secondary meaning.

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