Zippo smokes out opposition in ‘blu’ trademark dispute

Lighter manufacturer Zippo has scored a victory against a subsidiary of tobacco company Lorillard after a court ordered it to stop selling its ‘blu’ brand of e-cigarettes in Germany.

The Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main said the Cygnet UK Trading products could be confused with Zippo’s ‘blu’ trademark that it has for butane lighters and fuel.

According to Pennsylvania-based Zippo, the court issued a preliminary injunction preventing the company from selling the products in retail stores.

But Robert Bannon, director of investor relations at Lorillard, told Reuters news agency that the injunction will only impact online sales as the blu e-cigarettes are not currently sold at retail stores in Germany.

Zippo chief executive Gregory Booth said he was “very pleased” that the court had affirmed the company’s legal rights to its IP.

The German decision comes just months after WIPR reported that Zippo was going head-to-head with another Lorillard subsidiary in the US.

In a lawsuit filed at the US District Court for the Central District of California in May, Zippo demanded an injunction preventing LOEC, Inc from selling its electronic cigarettes under the blu brand name.

Zippo's claim was in response to LOEC’s requests for a declaratory judgment of non-infringement.

A trial is scheduled for April next year.

Zippo has also filed to quash blu trademark applications in Canada and Mexico.

Last year, WIPR interviewed Jeff Duke, general counsel at Zippo, who said it was the only lighter manufacturer in the world that was “counterfeited in great quantity”.

Zippo was founded in 1932 and its lighters are sold in more than 160 countries around the world. It has manufactured more than 500 million lighters to date.