After thirteen years of long battle, Coca-Cola Company has finally\u00a0 been granted registration for the trademark \u201czero\u2019\u2019 for its zero-calorie drinks, namely Coca-Cola Zero, Sprite Zero and Powerade Zero by the US trademark authorities.<\/p>\n
The company had been trying to register the trademark \u201czero\u201d in US since 2003. However, Dr Pepper who sells a diet soda, called Diet Rite Pure Zero, challenged this effort by Coca-Cola in the year 2007 for registration of the word \u201czero\u201d. \u00a0Dr.Pepper argued that \u201czero\u201d is a generic term which is used frequently by beverage firms for drinks which contain no calories. He also further argued that \u201czero\u201d being a common English word cannot be monopolized by anyone. Coca-Cola\u00a0in its defence put forth the argument that the word \u201czero\u201d is a distinctive label for its zero-calorie drinks and \u201czero\u201d is also a part of the brand name on its products. The Company furthered stated that it has carried out extensive marketing initiatives to popularize the brand name and hence seeks for registration of the same.<\/p>\n
The US Trademark Appellate Board passed a favorable order for Coca-Cola, based on the following reasons:<\/p>\n
The Appellate board however ruled that, it will not stop Dr. Pepper from using the word \u201czero\u201d , as Coca-Cola was not able to prove that Dr Pepper\u2019s product caused consumer confusion. The Appellate board agreed with the argument put forth by Dr Pepper that the brand name of the product Diet Rite Pure Zero\u00a0is inherently distinctive. The U.S. trademark authorities (Trademark Trial and Appellate Board\u00a0) said \u00a0that Coca-Cola Company \u00a0doesn\u2019t have exclusive rights to use the trademark \u201czero\u2019\u2019. However, they agreed to register it for the company\u2019s diet-soda and sports-drink brands. The Appellate board also stated that its ruling should not be taken as a precedent and that any dispute arising on the use of \u201czero\u201d in the beverage industry should be determined on its own merits.<\/p>\n
At this juncture, it is pertinent to note that, the trademark authorities in U.K and China have rejected trademark applications filed by Coca-Cola Company to register the trademark \u201czero\u201d for its brands.<\/p>\n
Authored by Sambhavi Patnaik<\/p>\n
Sources 1<\/a>, 2<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Coca-Cola has secured US trademark registration for “zero” after a prolonged legal battle, but without exclusive rights over the term. The decision highlights the complexities of trademark law concerning generic terms in the beverage industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":21,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,11],"tags":[8277,2005,5,8278,407,101,8276,8275],"class_list":["post-36944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-intellectual-property","category-trademarks","tag-beverage-industry","tag-coca-cola","tag-intellectual-property","tag-legal-case-study","tag-trademark-dispute","tag-trademark-law","tag-us-trademark-appellate-board","tag-zero-trademark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36944","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=36944"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135150,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36944\/revisions\/135150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}