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Home / defences / interoperability / trade mark / USA / A weighty trade mark issue for the US courts

A weighty trade mark issue for the US courts

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The IPKat has learned from Reuters that Weight Watchers is suing Nestle for trade mark infringement in the District Court of Southern New York. Weight Watchers claims that Nestle has displayed trade marks relating to Weight Watchers and its points system on its Skinny Cow ice creams and Lean Cuisine ready meals. Weight Watchers fears that this may confuse consumers into thinking that it has endorsed Nestle's products. Nestle meanwhile runs its own weightloss programme, Jenny Craig Inc.

This looks to the IPKat like a rather unconventional interoperability case. Can you use someone else's trade mark to tell them that you food fits into their diet programme? Even if you can, should you do it in a way which doesn't cause confusion?
A weighty trade mark issue for the US courts A weighty trade mark issue for the US courts Reviewed by Anonymous on Thursday, September 17, 2009 Rating: 5

2 comments:

  1. AnonymousFriday, 18 September 2009 at 09:33:00 GMT+1

    WW went after Tesco (who themselves have an independent diet programme) some years ago for referring to WW & their "Points" trade mark. Both M&S and Tesco now still refer to WW on their low fat food packaging with a simple statement that the product is not WW endorsed so this will surely settle?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Amarjit Singh KullarTuesday, 22 September 2009 at 18:12:00 GMT+1

    I agree with the previous reader. The advertisement is just for marketing only. That does have little impact for profit. But if the quality is good, then the market will go up.

    ReplyDelete

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