In competitive consumer markets, product shapes and configurations are a battleground for trademark protection. The prolonged dispute between Nestle and Cadbury over the shape of the KitKat chocolate bar illustrates the legal complexity that arises when companies seek to register non-traditional marks such as three-dimensional product shapes.<\/p>\n
The dispute originated in 2010, when Nestle applied to register a trademark for the distinctive four-fingered rectangular shape of the KitKat bar. Cadbury opposed the application before the United Kingdom Trademark Registry, which refused the registration in 2013. The UK refusal came against the backdrop of a separate dispute the previous year, in which a UK Court of Appeal ruling in October 2013 had blocked Cadbury’s own attempt to trademark the colour purple used to wrap its milk chocolate \u2014 a proceeding in which Nestle had prevailed. Cadbury, as the British unit of Mondelez International Inc., then pursued its opposition to Nestle’s shape mark before the European Union’s Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
The outcomes across jurisdictions have not been uniform. In South Africa, the Supreme Court ruled in Nestle’s favour, prohibiting IFFCO from selling fingered wafer products similar to the KitKat two-finger and four-finger shapes. However, the Court qualified its ruling, with Judge KGB Swain observing: “It is quite clear that the finger wafer shape trade marks in issue do not grant Nestle a monopoly over trapezoidal chocolate bars.”<\/em><\/p>\n By contrast, in Singapore, the position went against Nestle. In 2013, Nestle alleged that Petra Foods had infringed its Singapore trademarks for the two-finger and four-finger KitKat shapes with its Delfi Take It bar. Singapore’s High Court ruled in Petra’s favour and accepted a counterclaim to annul Nestle’s Singapore trademarks for the KitKat shape.<\/p>\n The litigation has highlighted that the registrability and enforceability of shape trademarks varies considerably by jurisdiction, depending on the applicable legal standards for distinctiveness and functionality, and the evidence of acquired distinctiveness that the trademark owner is able to produce.<\/p>\n This article is for general information and does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult a qualified attorney before acting on any matter discussed here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The legal tussle between Nestle and Cadbury over the KitKat shape trademark underscores the significance of product identity in the chocolate industry. This post explores the history, court decisions, and strategic considerations in their trademark disputes, providing an objective legal analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":54,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,11],"tags":[4926,7173,7172,7175,2166,407,7174],"class_list":["post-25350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-intellectual-property","category-trademarks","tag-cadbury","tag-chocolate-shape","tag-kitkat","tag-mondelez-international","tag-nestle","tag-trademark-dispute","tag-uk-trademark-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25350"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149779,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25350\/revisions\/149779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Disclaimer<\/h2>\n