Posts Tagged: "coca cola"

Coca-Cola Win Reversed at CAFC in Case Over Indian Soda Trademarks

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today reversed a decision of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) that had canceled two marks for Thums Up cola and Limca lemon-lime soda owned by Meenaxi Enterprise, Inc. The CAFC held that Coca-Cola had not established a statutory cause of action based on lost sales or reputational injury under Section 14(3) of the Lanham Act and thus reversed the decision. Judge Reyna wrote separately in concurrence but said he would have focused the inquiry on the territoriality principle and the well-known mark exception, rather than lost sales and reputational injury among U.S. consumers, as the majority did.

Eileen McDermott

June 29, 2022

As cannabis patent filings increase, are food and beverage companies positioned to benefit?

Early protection of intellectual property rights is a critical component in any business’ efforts to secure a competitive advantage in the marketplace. A recent report has found that patenting activity for cannabis food and drink has seen a large increase in global activity, in the last five years. 242 simple patent families have been filed in 2015, up from only 144 simple patent families filed in 2012. However, not a single food and beverage company was found to be among the top 10 applicants. Is this a sign that food and beverage companies are not well positioned to benefit from ongoing cannabis legalisation?

Paul Bremmer

November 9, 2018

Federal Circuit Finds TTAB Erred In Determining Genericnessof Coca-Cola’s ZERO Trademarks

On Wednesday, June 30th, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a decision in Royal Crown Company, Inc., et. al. v. The Coca-Cola Company which vacated and remanded an earlier decision by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) regarding the use of “ZERO” trademarks on soft drink beverages marketed by Coca-Cola. The Federal Circuit panel, consisting of Circuit Judges Pauline Newman, Kathleen O’Malley and Richard Taranto, found that the TTAB had erred in its legal framing of the question regarding the claimed genericness of Coca-Cola’s mark and failed to determine whether the mark was at least highly descriptive if not generic.

Steve Brachmann

July 7, 2018

A TWIST in the tale: Not your typical cola war

This case was not your typical “cola war”, but rather involved TWIST, the well-known carbonated beverage brand which has been available in South Africa since the 1970s (originally as LEMON TWIST). Atlantic is the proprietor in South Africa of the TWIST, LEMON TWIST and DIET TWIST trade marks in relation to non-alcoholic drinks falling in class 32. PepsiCo applied to register the trade marks PEPSI TWIST and a PEPSI TWIST label, also in relation to non-alcoholic beverages in class 32… In finding in favor of Atlantic in the opposition, the Court felt it necessary to only rule on the issue of confusing similarity, ie. whether the proposed PEPSI TWIST trade marks were sufficiently similar to Atlantic’s trade marks to create a likelihood of deception or confusion.

Kelly Thompson

October 10, 2017

Coca-Cola’s Patents: From Juice Dispensers to Artificially Sweetened Cereals

Coca-Cola is a company that has a focus on innovation that goes beyond the ability to create better tasting sodas or carbonated beverages. For example, Coke is working to ensure that 100,000 of its vending machines all over North America will be enabled to accept Apple Pay for drink purchases by the end of 2015. Coke’s vending machines have actually been the recipient of a great deal of R&D investment in recent years as the company has developed machines that respond to customer gestures or even interact with other vending machine customers located hundreds of miles away… As a member of the DJIA, Coca-Cola inhabits a fairly important area of our nation’s economy. In its most recent quarterly earnings report, Coke indicated that its global volume grew by about two percent during the 2014 fiscal year and enjoyed a full-year cash from operations increase to $10.6 billion.

Steve Brachmann

March 25, 2015

Vault with Coca-Cola Trade Secret Formula on Public Display

Can you imagine the security employed in transferring the trade secret from the SunTrust Bank vault to the vault at the World of Coca-Cola? The Coca-Cola formula has been notorious with rampant rumors, creating its own urban mythology with respect to both the formula and efforts to protect the secret formula. All you have to do is Google “coke formula urban myth” and you will find all kinds of claims. Thus, it seems almost a virtual certainty that a new mythology will now be created and grow. It has always seemed to me that Coca-Cola is very comfortable with the urban myths, relishing them and even using them by some accounts to feed into the power of the trade secret, not to mention using them to misdirect the public into thinking, rightly or wrongly, that Fort Knox like security has always been employed to protect the formula.

Gene Quinn

January 6, 2012

How Industry Giants Like Apple, Inc & Others Use Social Media

Those of you who follow IPWatchdog, know that my passion is Brand Development, Brand Building, and Online Marketing using social media. I try to educate our readers on how they can use social media for their businesses regardless of size. However, I decided to take a different approach and compare the social media campaigns of Apple, Inc, Coca Cola, Nike and Dell Computers. Let’s take a look at how these four industry giants use social media today.

Renee C. Quinn

September 24, 2011

Brand Identity: Protecting Against Negative Good Will

from the business perspective when you are building a trademark or trademark portfolio it is really the good will that will define the value of the trademark. But like most things in life there is a double edge sword. There is positive good will and negative good will. Negative good will sounds silly I know, but it relates not to the absence of good will, but negative feelings. So, for example, BP is in the process of developing enormous negative good will as a result of the oil spill in the gulf of Mexico.

Gene Quinn

June 10, 2010