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THE EUROPEAN UNION’S top court should cancel Swiss food giant Nestle’s trademark for the shape of the Kit Kat chocolate bar, the court’s top adviser said today.
Nestle has been locked in a decade-long battle with US rival Mondelez, maker of Cadbury chocolate, over the four-fingered wafer biscuit, which was first sold in 1935.
The EU’s intellectual property office allowed Nestle in 2006 to trademark what the court calls the “three-dimensional shape of the ‘Kit Kat 4 fingers’ product”.
Advocate General Melchior Wathelet said the European Court of Justice (ECJ) should dismiss an appeal by Nestle against a lower court’s 2016 decision to annul the trademark.
“Nestle did not adduce sufficient evidence to show that its trademark had acquired distinctive character,” Wathelet said.
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He said the intellectual property office should now “re-examine” its decision.
The Luxembourg-based ECJ often, but not always, follows the advice of the advocate general, its senior legal advisor, when making its final judgement.
The food giant specifically failed to show that the Kit Kat shape was well enough known in Belgium, Ireland, Greece, Luxembourg and Portugal, relying instead on market data from other countries, he said.
The official also said the EU court should reject an appeal by Mondelez against part of the judgement, saying it was “manifestly inadmissible”.
Nestle has already lost a legal bid in Britain — currently an EU member state but set to leave next year — to trademark the Kit Kat shape.
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just to correct the article ..it says that Mondelez are owners of “Cadbury chocolate” .That should say “muck” instead. Cadbury hasn’t made chocolate in a long time since the yanks took over &started churning out tasteless muck instead
I grew up a mile away from Bourneville, used to always love Cadbury and also bought it for nostalgic reasons coming from Birmingham, but it’s no longer chocolate, it’s production is moving bit by bit to Poland, the recipe is totally different, I’ve even seen hydrogenated fat as an ingredient!
It’s sad to see the food we eat being degraded day by day!
:-(
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