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WE COULD BE about to see a flood of new four-finger chocolate bars to rival Kit Kat come onto the market, after Nestlé suffered a big blow in a long-running court battle to protect the shape of its iconic chocolate bar.
The advocate-general for the European Court of Justice has ruled that Nestlé’s attempts to trademark the ‘four finger’ design of Kit Kat don’t hold up under EU law.
It follows a court challenge by rival Cadbury, which opposed Nestlé’s attempt to trademark the Kit Kat design when it filed its request back in 2010.
The decision means rivals are theoretically free to launch their own four finger chocolate bars without fear of getting tied up in the courts.
The Kit Kat design has barely changed since launching in 1935 and Nestlé sold £40 million (€55 million) worth of Kit Kats in the UK every year between 2008 and 2010, according to the Guardian.
A spokesperson for Nestlé told Business Insider via email:
Nestlé will review the Advocate General’s Opinion with interest and look forward to the full decision of the Court. KIT KAT is much loved and its unique shape, which has been used for 80 years, is well known by consumers.”
It’s not the first time Cadbury and Nestlé have faced each other in the courts. In 2013 Nestlé won a long running legal battle to stop Cadbury trademarking the specific hue of purple that runs across all its branding.
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I’d love a free house
@Stevie Doran: if you draw the scratch and have many babies, you will be on the short list for one. Me like you would rather the old fashion way of working for what we have
@Stevie Doran: There are no free houses.
@Stevie Doran: you are that rare creature, a complete and utter scrounger. No one gets a free house but you want one for yourself.
@Fiona deFreyne: so how do these lucky people get the keys to a new build. Please do tell
@Ger Hanley: by deserving priority on a housing list as assessed by expert and experienced housing officers and then paying rent for such housing.
@Fiona deFreyne: very lite rent compared to mortgage payment
@Ger Hanley: it is based on ability to pay. Non tracker mortgage rates and private rents are far too high relative to income and affordability.
@Fiona deFreyne: by getting up the duff 2 or 3 times not having a partner or job usually gets you fairly high up the list, higher say than someone whose actually working on a low paid job is married has kids pays tax but because they have a job and some means of support their classed as less needy as the local bike so they end up lower down the list, great to see the system work
@Stevie Doran:
Can you amend your comment from “free house” to “10 euro p/w rent house” to please
Fiona deFreyne as she seems upset at the idea of free-loaders being called free-loaders.
@John: have her blocked for spouting absolute shite before
@Ger Hanley: A real life martyr.
@W.J.Delaney: ha you pathetic w@@ker, I have all I have because I earned it house, car, business and family
@Kevin Smyth: no a real life worker
@Les Boyd: of you think having kids get you a free house then leave you los skilled los paid job and get one … fact of the matter is nobody gets free house in this country if you think otherwise then u sir are am idiot
@Les Boyd: if the housing list and social housing system is such an easy ride why not leave your job and go on it ???? Because even tho your one of the most idiotic commenters ive seen on this in a long time you have the small bit of common sense to know that even through all the crap you spout you know that the housing list and social housing system isn’t anything like the utopia you claim it is
@Stevie Doran: Another housing article with the fraperoom all over it like a rash slandering anyone on the waiting list for social housing.
@Stevie Doran: It’s not a free house. The state owns it.
@Lita Campbell: what do you call them so lita?pmsl
@Stevie Doran: they are not free. You pay rent! You have the option to buy after 12months
@John: €10 lol i know someone living in a free house and pays €800 per month. Why because they work, not all in the list are unemployed. Still free?
Maybe Sinn Fein should realise that people buy a bloody private house so they dont have to live beside people in social housing, it is what it is, you cant force people to live with each other
@Les Boyd: Sinn Fein were the only party to consult with residents in the West Clondalkin area and the points they raised were a direct result of that. We haven’t seen FG or FF around these parts in years.
@Les Boyd: Les. I live in Holland. It is not permitted to develop a site exclusively. 1. The building only begins when enough of the proposed private homes have been sold. 2. The developer is legally obliged to build a certain amount of affordable housing which will be the property of a housing society who then rent the homes to those who are highest on the waiting list. 3. Not all people living in rented accommodation are dole bums. I find your remark extremely offensive towards those who can’t afford to buy a home.
@John Brendan Mullen: well maybe they should look elsewhere, if you’re only on the average industrial wage you can’t afford to buy in most areas in Dublin.
@John Brendan Mullen: john l couldnt give a rats backside whether you find my comment offensive or not, lm not going to pay my hard money to live beside god knows who, its the like of you and the politically correct brigade who introduced the whole idea of affordable to private ratio, this is used only in middle class developments because ther are no large scale developments in upper class areas because one theres no land and two builders know that the upper class wont live beside affordable housing, get your head out of your backside
@Les Boyd: I would prefer to live beside a respectable and hard wording social housing tenant than the likes of you. Nothing personal.
@Fiona deFreyne: good for you fiona isnt it great to have the choice, and not be forced into a game of residential roulette
@Fiona deFreyne: and if they’re not Harding working respectable social housing tenants ?
@John Brendan Mullen: Either Irish society has moved to an extreme uncaring society , or that section of the Irish people have found a comfortable home here on The Journal.ie ,
@Pat Price:
With support for FG/FF growing again I would say the former.
Not only do the Shinners want the free everything & contribute nothing brigade to get handed houses from the state, they want to rub it in the face of those who pay for their houses by having them next door.
There is no free house for the poor unlike the middle class who take inheritance of property and savings for granted and pay next to fu€k all tax if any on their free gifts. They then use their free homes to screw vulnerable tenants especially the disabled who are left with unsecure HAP which the middle class landlords take and is glorified middle class dole.
To all those poor haters where are the disabled and OAPs supposed to live with unsecure HAP and fu€k all council houses being built.
@Stan: do you actually know what middle class means, middle class are the people saving for 3-4 years to get our deposit for a home, were the ones being taxed into oblivion to pay for the recovery of the state and the welfare state that 190,000 are still milking
@Les Boyd: Ye have your hands out for water refunds and stating you were very happy to pay 3 times for water. Ye also have your hands out for 5 euro a week tax cuts instead of disabled housing and services for carers like Tom Clunan highlighted for his disabled sons future. Ye also like 650,000 of your fellow citizens suffering on hospital waiting lists and growing numbers of your fellow citizens losing their homes including 1 in 5 workers and that is going to grow with your loved min- low waged gig economy workers who can only dream of home ownership.
And ye are oblivious to the fact that the disabled and OAPS need secure social housing while demanding Leo and DR councillors don’t build any near you with your NIMBYISM attitude.
@Stan:
All the council houses were sold to council tenants 20 years ago for buttons and their heirs sold them on for massive profits prior to the Celtic Tiger Crash.
Poor people done good as it were.
@Les Boyd: Ye have conveniently forgot the real milkers of the system -Apple,vulture funds, bondholders,poverty paying employers,welfare of FIS. Oh your heros FGs and Regina with her payments and tax write offs CHEAT US ALL,not the unprivileged poor who are denied dignity of a home while they alive by ye so called pro lifers who don’t care about life after a poor child is born to a poor forced to give birth mother.
@Stan: you want the dignity of a home then bloody get out get a job and pay for one, as hand out for water and they other BS your throwing at me cop on l didnt pay it cause like the vast majority of people l know when lm being screwed and on your other pro socialist opinion which you drooled out,as much as apple and all the multi nationals pay low tax rates it goes on in every European country, these companies employ over 300,000 in this country they account for over 35% of the states exports, remove their low tax rates and this country would collapse.
I live in “mixed” estate with social and private housing, I have to say there is something soul destroying going to work at 6am and paying a 400k mortgage knowing that the neighbours will be in bed for another 5 hours and are paying almost no rent!
We were also told that the tenants of these houses would be subject to strict vetting procedures – which have resulted in drug addicts openly using on the green common areas of the estate where my children play and their children roam the streets at all hours of the night!!
Sinn Féin councillor Mark Ward and all like him should be kicked off the councils they serve for suggesting this!
There is a reason we pay for private housing and it’s not to be located next to the dregs of society!!!!!
Whoever came up with this idea in the first place needs to be sacked from office!!!!!!
@Karl Monaghan: Best no-nonsense comment so far.
@Karl Monaghan: yeh and could you please push your car around the corner before you start it as some mornings you are waking me up and i hate being wokeing at 6am ,it takes me ages to get back to sleep as i was up all night with the new missus if you know what i mean ,thank you ,ps you should try and get a holiday this year your missus was telling me your not keeping up with your manly duties ,but dont worry i will sort it for you. relaxed only joking you dont have to push the car,after my few cans i sleep like 1 of my 8 kids .
@ian kennedy: Holiday? What is that? sure only folks like yourself know what the real Disneyland looks like, I had to spend my last 100 euro on this years new edition of the leaving cert English and Maths books…..
@Karl Monaghan: stop you,ll have me crying in a minute,only joking
Great, I can imagine the dole bums riding like mad to have a baby to be bumped up the housing list. Try get a job, maybe get a mortgage then you can have your own home
@George Sturdy: no I’m working in the private sector, working hard and paying taxes and paying for a mortgage. I prefer my kids had a role model rather than someone sucking off the system
@George Sturdy: no I had 10% for a beautiful semi detached that cost €200,000 10 years ago. What’s your point ?
@Ger Hanley: there’s 95% employment Ger. Pretty much all of us have jobs its not just you and couple other martyrs keeping the country going. There’ll always be a certain amount of social housing required.
@George Sturdy: no my daddy did not help as he died 17 years ago. Me and my wife sacrificed most luxuries to get our deposit
And we have lived frugally to pay for our own house
@George Sturdy: hey BS alert. We both a shell of a house and done it room by year, if you don’t believe we have the photos, so STFU
@George Sturdy:
All the more reason for private home owners not to live beside Social Housing units. Segregation means that social home owners won’t feel others are looking down on them for not being able to provide for themselves and private home owners won’t feel they are getting shafted for working hard and being good role models by providing for themselves..
@George Sturdy: your comments make you a dole bum who would rather take rather than give.
@Ger Hanley: neighbour of mine has 2 kids and is on the housing list 7 years.
No sign of an offer of a house.
What does she do?
She’s currently expecting baby number 3 to bump herself up the list.
Never worked a day in her life, the fella is unofficially living in with her.
I have no issue with those living in council housing if they actually work.
The attitude nowadays is take take take and contribute nothing through employment.
This country is going to be densely overpopulated due to the incentives of the welfare system before we know it.
Sinn Féin believe that people who don’t work should get the same quality of home for minimal rent as those that do work and have to pay through the nose for it for 30 years. Yeah, unicorn economics by the lefties is fair alright.
@George Sturdy: A house costs €30,000 to construct? Where, Leitrim?? Not in Dublin that’s for sure.
@George Sturdy: troll or just an uneducated idiot
Will they put ethnic Irish people in these 100 social houses? Maybe 10% at best
@Liam Flag: go out to popintree ballymun where they built prefab social apts and houses for the homeless what a joke they housed mostly non Irish exactly as I knew would happen Liam keep your head buried in your PC Bubble
The comments lol ffs lads you’re suppose to work what do you want a Medal gobshiiite photographer and a scruff in a Dublin jersey think they’re some sort of heroes absolute comical who the fxxk wants to live in a council estate ? Nobody but you have to put a roof over kids heads and a private sector job WOW! Only an IQ of a 7 year old required to get one of them… oh and I work 6 days a week and pay a mortgage so save your tiny cock speeches.
@Morizy: looks who is talking about small cock speeches
@Morizy: what shit job do you have, that you have to work 6 days a week. I work 4 1/2 and spend the rest with my friends and family. Who’s the sad sack now ?
@Ger Hanley: i only have 2 a year without a job
@Morizy: have you been talking to my missus?
To those who are being offensive at social housing –
I have no children, don’t drink & don’t do drugs, am reasonably educated & believe in hard work – I worked hard for decades; then became seriously ill and am now having to live on invalidity pension.
I would LOVE to be well enough to work again, to be actually getting a living wage again; being able to afford to rent a decent place would be a dream.
I went from renting a luxury flat, to a mouse-infested bedsit with no heating, to living in hostels. I’m now back in private rental, but live in fear that landlord will raise my rent – I pay rent to HAP, plus extra to landlord ’cause HAP’s rental ceiling is low.
According to many of you oh, so righteous folk, everyone who needs social housing is a junkie and a shirker; but one day, you just might find you have a need for social housing yourself.
Have UKIP taken over the comments section?
“Bums!” “For’ners!” “Rabble rabble!” “Free stuff!”
@Kevin Smyth: The FG fraperoom, rabid right facists.
@Dave Doyle: anyone who disagree must be from the FG fraperoom eh ?
@Suzie Sunshine: most are, it is true.
Lets hope there is a dedicated Garda serving this new estate.
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