Coke accuses Pepsi of copying its dress sense
The Coca Cola Company has put the squeeze on its long-standing rival PepsiCo by filing a trade dress infringement complaint that concerns their respective juice beverage lines.
PepsiCo’s Trop50 juice beverages underwent a bottle redesign in August that makes the line “confusingly similar to” the trade dress of Coca Cola’s Simply Juice beverages, according to the complaint.
The case was filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas Houston Division on October 28. Coca Cola also alleges that PepsiCo has diluted its Simply brand, acted unfairly by trading on its goodwill and infringed its patented design.
Simply products are packaged in carafe-style clear plastic bottles with an over-sized dark green closure.
According to the complaint, PepsiCo’s Trop50 beverages were originally released in a generic carton.
PepsiCo then adopted a bottle that is “virtually indistinguishable from the Simply trade dress when the labels are obscured as can often occur at the store or in a post-sale setting”.
Coca Cola wants to prevent PepsiCo using its current carafe-style bottle shape for its Trop50 range with injunctive relief. It is also seeking punitive damages.
Neither company would comment on the continuing litigation.
