A family business sued by Oatly for alleged trademark infringement has won a lawsuit against the multi-million pound company.
This Oatly A legal action was filed against Glebe Farm Foods, a Cambridgeshire-based company that specializes in gluten-free oats, accusing them of trying to “unfairly use” the Oatly trademark through an oat beverage called PureOaty.
Glebe Farm Foods, run by the brothers and sisters of Philip and Rebecca Rayner, denied these claims. In Thursday’s judgment, Judge Nicholas Caddick QC ruled in favor of the brothers and sisters.
During a two-day hearing in June, the London High Court learned that the agricultural company launched an oat milk called Oat Drink in 2019, and then launched a renamed PureOaty in 2020.
Lawyers for alternative milk manufacturer Oatly argued that Glebe Farm Foods infringed their company’s five trademarks with the PureOaty name and beverage packaging, and “passed off” their products as Oatly’s.
Judge Caddick found similarities between the original PureOaty packaging and Oatly packaging, including the use of blue and the use of irregular fonts for the product name
However, the judge stated that these similarities were “at a very common level.”
Oatly’s lawyers also argued that the client might mistakenly believe that PureOaty is a product of Oatly, but did not provide any evidence.
Judge Cadick said: “It’s difficult to see what confusion the defendant would have caused by using the PureOaty logo. In particular, the use of “Pure” as the prefix of the word “Oaty” and the appearance of the entire carton precluded PureOaty products from being considered in my opinion. Oatly any possibility of some kind of sub-brand. ”
The court was informed that Oatly had sold more than 38 million copies of “barista version” oat milk, as well as more than 13 million copies of other varieties.
Judge Cadick continued: “As far as the facts of this case are concerned, I don’t think there is any risk of damage to the distinctive features of the Oatly trademark.
“If Oatly loses sales, then in my opinion, it may be because there are competitor oat beverage products on the market, and not because the brand’s attractiveness as a sign of origin has been due to the defendant’s use of the PureOaty logo.”
He concluded: “The similarity between the logo and the trademark is relatively low, or at best a very mild level. This similarity is due to the presence of the letters “oat” describing “oat” in both the logo and the logo. Related products. “
After the ruling, Philip Rayner said: “For more than a year, we have been facing the threat of this court case-which makes our challenger brand against Oatly’s multinational business-haunt us.
“We have always been convinced that we have done nothing wrong, and we are determined to be similar to Oatly’s claim that our brand is similar-now that this is proven wrong.
“You only need to look at the two products and packaging side by side to understand the differences between these brands and how unnecessary this legal action is.
“It is very gratifying that the judge has ruled in our favor and sees that smaller independent companies can fight back and win.”
Oatly stated that it will not appeal the verdict.
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Oatly Public Relations Manager Erica Wigge said: “Although for some people, this may be seen as a testament by the Small Oats Beverage Company to the Big Oat Beverage Company, we have never actually seen it that way.
“For us, this case has always been about protecting our trademark… If we let a company pass because they, like Glebe Farm, seem to be one of the good guys, that might open the door for the bad guys.
“The truth is, we like all oatmeal beverage companies and have never filed this case to harm Glebe Farm.
“In fact, we want them to thrive and help bring products that benefit the planet into the world.
“We just think they should do it with their own unique voice just like us.”
