UK Supreme Court ends Budweiser trademark row
The UK Supreme Court has ended a long-running dispute over the Budweiser trademark by confirming that two breweries can use the mark simultaneously in the UK.
In a January 8 ruling the court dismissed an application by Anheuser-Busch Inbev (ABI) to appeal against an earlier decision that rejected the company’s attempts to invalidate Budejovicky Budvar’s mark.
Czech brewer Budvar published a statement on January 15 saying the court had ruled the application “inadmissible”. A spokesman for US-owned ABI told WIPR that the company was disappointed by the Supreme Court's decision.
The Supreme Court’s decision closes the book on case that begun in 2005, when ABI tried to invalidate Budvar’s Budweiser mark.
In July 2012, the UK Court of Appeal rejected ABI’s suit. The court had sought clarification from the Court of Justice of the EU, which ruled in September 2011 that both companies should be able to use the mark in the UK. The European court took that position because it said the companies had both used the marks in good faith for nearly 30 years and, therefore, the marks did not confuse consumers.
In the UK, the companies have shared the Budweiser mark since 2000. ABI applied to have the word Budweiser registered as a UK trademark in 1976, which predates Budvar’s application for Budweiser in 1989.
Mark Blair, senior partner at Marks & Clerk in London, which advises Budejovicky Budvar, welcomed the conclusion to the case:
“This allows the trademark register to reflect the reality of the situation in the market place—that both brands co-exist and have done so for many years. It is a further example of how trademark law must be interpreted within its commercial context: that even in cases of so-called double identity, where the same mark is used in respect of the same goods, it is still necessary to demonstrate an adverse effect on the ability of the trade mark to function as an indication of origin.”
The UK case was just one of many disputes over the Budweiser mark going back more than 100 years. At the moment, the companies are fighting at least 11 court cases in eight countries. The Czech Budvar brewery opened in 1895, by which time US brewer Anheuser-Busch (now part of ABI) had already been making Budweiser beer for 19 years.
In 2011, Budvar sold about 1.3 million hectolitres of beer, while ABI sold nearly 400 million hectolitres in the same time.
