Cadbury loses battle on its Purple Color

In what could have been one of the biggest blows to Cadbury in recent times, after a bitter five year battle with rivals, the Swiss company of Nestle, Cadbury has lost its trademark purple color (Pantone 2865c) on an assortment of products.

The purple color, which makes the Cadbury’s chocolate bars packaging distinctive from other chocolate brands was introduced in year 1914 as a tribute to Queen Victoria. Purple was Queen Victoria’s favorite color. The full range of Cadbury’s chocolates became purple and gold in the year 1920. Cadbury’s chocolate company has been bought over by the American Kraft Foods Group Inc., but continues to sell their chocolates under the Cadbury’s and Cadbury’s Dairy Milk brand names.

Cadbury, the famous chocolate manufacturer, applied to register a trade mark (No. 2 376 879) for the color purple (Pantone 2685C) "applied to the whole visible surface, or being the predominant color applied to the whole visible surface, of the packaging of the goods" for goods in Class 30, namely "chocolate in bar and tablet form" and other miscellaneous chocolate products. Nestle opposed the application.  (Paragraph source: http://ipkitten.blogspot.in/2012/11/the-color-purple-cadbury-v-nestle.html)

In a bitter court battle with rivals nestle the point raised by nestle was whether Cadbury's mark was a "sign capable of being represented graphically", with Nestlé's contention that the color purple was not (1) "a sign" and was not (2) "capable of being represented graphically" and therefore, could not be registered under Section 3(1)(a) of the Trade Marks Act 1994. The court case turned on a technicality and whether the language used by Cadbury in an application to trademark the color had been clear. The three Court of Appeal judges decided it had not and therefore denied the confectionery company’s attempt to claim exclusive use of it.

The implications include that not only rivals nestle, who brought about the lawsuit, but any other brand can use the ‘Cadbury Purple’ color on the packaging of their products. It also means that other ‘assortment’ of Cadbury products do not have the exclusive rights to use the color Pantone 2685C. However, the company is adamant that it intends to file a lawsuit against any company which infringes the rights of the brand or produces confusing or similar looking products.