The Coca-Cola Company is known for its very comprehensive brand protection strategy.
This time, The Coca-Cola Company – which also owns the ‘Fanta’ brand – attempted to block the registration of the FANTOLA trademarks for various snacks and beverages, owned by the Russian company Aqualife.
Announcing or testing a new business name without legal protection opens the door for competitors to snatch it right out from under you.
Under trademark law, an Intent-to-Use (ITU) filing allows you to lock down priority rights to your name while your product is still in development!
A spicy new move in the beverage world!
The Coca-Cola Company has officially submitted a brand-new trademark application for the word „Spricy” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office!
Not only is TikTok stepping up its efforts to protect intellectual property, other e-commerce platforms are also developing similar solutions.
Social commerce moves at lightning speed. Unlike traditional web stores with static listings, social platforms thrive on short-form video ads, viral trends, and live-stream shopping.
Because infringing products can appear and disappear in hours, traditional manual „Notice-and-Takedown” enforcement is no longer enough to protect your revenue and reputation.
TikTok Shop has launched TikTok Real – a global intellectual property protection programme designed to support intellectual property rights holders in combating infringements, including the sale of counterfeit goods.
The French court – the Versailles Court of Appeal – ruled that the use of slogans referencing Hermès and Birkin on handbags may infringe trademark rights, even if the message was intended to be humorous. 🇫🇷🏛️ The case concerned handbags bearing slogans such as ‘My Hermès is at home’ and ‘While waiting for My Birkin’. 👜💬
Humour is great marketing tool, but using it on commercial goods is incredibly risky. Many creators assume that wrapping a famous logo in a „joke” automatically protects them as a parody. But trademark law has a very strict definition of what legally qualifies as a defense.
When a traditional store imports inventory, they face strict legal responsibilities to certify that every item is safe, chemical-free, and compliant with local laws. But the rise of direct-to-consumer e-commerce has exposed a massive regulatory gap.
The Jack Daniel’s v Bad Spaniels case shows that a successful parody is not always entirely legally safe.
In this case, the parties were Jack Daniel’s, with its trademarks and the distinctive design of its Tennessee Whiskey bottle – featuring a square shape, a ribbed neck, a black-and-white label, a decorative border and arched lettering – and VIP Products, with its rubber dog toy ‘Bad Spaniels Silly Squeaker’. On the toy, the name ‘Jack Daniel’s’ was replaced with ‘Bad Spaniels’, ‘Old No. 7’ was changed to ‘Old No. 2’, and ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ to ‘Tennessee Carpet’. The label also featured jokes relating to dog poo, including ‘43% POO BY VOL.’ and ‘100% SMELLY’.
