Brussels – Nestle is at risk of losing its EU trademark for the shape of the KitKat bar after an EU court ruled Thursday the bloc’s trademark office had not proved that the confection’s four-section shape had a “distinctive character.”
“The office will need to determine whether or not that 3-D shape has in fact acquired a distinctive shape in all of the member states at the time that the mark was registered,” court press officer Holly Gallagher told dpa.
A bath filled with KitKat’s pictured on November 6, 2013, at Google House in London ahead of Google’s Android 4.4 KitKat launch. Nestle is at risk of losing its EU trademark for the shape of the KitKat bar after an EU court ruled on December 15, 2016, the bloc’s trademark office had not proved that the confection’s four-section shape had a “distinctive character.” (Photo credit: Tolga Akmen/LNP)
Nestle filed its application to register the KitKat shape in 2002, when the European Union consisted of 15 countries.
After the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), which promotes and registers EU trademarks, agreed to register the shape in 2006, British confectioner Cadbury Schweppes – now Mondelez – moved to have the mark declared invalid in 2007.
The EU General Court said Friday it was annulling the 2012 EUIPO decision to dismiss Mondalez’s claim, as the office had not yet proved the “distinctive character” of the chocolate bar shape in all of those member countries.
-dpa
