Coffeehouse hits back at Coca-Cola opposition
Multinational company Coca-Cola has a fight on its hands—a San Diego-based coffeehouse has answered the drinks company’s trademark opposition, claiming that Coca-Cola will not be damaged by the mark ‘ Freestyle Xpresso’.
On Thursday, February 8, Ryan Brother’s Coffee of San Diego filed its answer to Coca-Cola’s trademark opposition at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.
Coca-Cola cited two trademarks, ‘Coca-Cola Freestyle’ and ‘Freestyle’, in the opposition.
But according to Ryan Brother’s, “applicant denies that registrant owns numerous federal trademark registrations for beverages that include the word ‘Freestyle’”.
The coffeehouse added that there is only one registration which includes the ‘Freestyle’ trademark, and that the mark is in class 32 for “Non-alcoholic beverages, namely, drinking waters, flavoured waters, soft drinks, energy drinks, sports drinks, and fruit drinks”.
Coca-Cola doesn’t have any applications or registrations in class 30 for “coffee”, according to the coffeehouse.
The ‘Freestyle Xpresso’ mark was filed in December 2016 and covers class 30.
The multinational filed its opposition to the mark in early January, claiming that ‘Freestyle’ would cause confusion, that there was no bona fide intent to use the mark and that there was a false suggestion of a connection between the mark and Coca-Cola.
Coca-Cola claimed that the Ryan Brother’s mark would cause confusion with its ‘Coca-Cola Freestyle’ mark (US number 4,323,421) for classes 11 and 32, and the ‘Freestyle’ mark (number 3,781,997) for class 11.
“Applicant’s alleged mark so closely resembles opposer’s ‘Freestyle’ marks that potential purchasers of the goods offered under applicant’s alleged mark would be likely to believe that Coca-Cola is the source of such goods,” said the opposition.
A discovery conference in the case must have been undertaken by March 14.
This isn’t the first time Coca-Cola has taken issue with a coffeeshop.
In November last year, WIPR reported that the multinational was facing accusations of being a “trademark bully” after reportedly asking an independent coffee shop in a UK town to stop using the word ‘Honest’.
One month before this, a New Zealand-based café had to rebrand after receiving a legal threat from Coca-Cola.
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