Cadbury wins trademark battle over purple packaging

Confectionery giant Cadbury has won a legal battle to prevent Nestlé using its unique purple colour on its packaging.

The High Court ruled in favour of Cadbury to stop Nestlé using the Pantone 2865c tint on its products.

A Cadbury spokesperson told Packaging News: “We welcome the decision of the High Court which allows us to register as a trademark and protect our famous colour purple across a range of milk chocolate products. Our colour purple has been linked with Cadbury for a century and the British public have grown up understanding its link with our chocolate.”

Kraft-owned Cadbury trademarked the colour in 2008 but was locked in a legal battle after Nestlé challenged the ruling.

Packaging

According to the Birmingham Mail, Judge Colin Birss dismissed the main part of an appeal by Nestle after Cadbury successfully applied to register the colour purple “as a trademark for chocolate”.

But he toned down the wording of the “specification of goods” registered, after concluding that Cadbury’s purple trade mark should only apply to packaging for some types of milk chocolate and drinking chocolate.

According to the Birmingham Mail, Judge Birss dismissed Nestle’s primary case after stating: “Since on the evidence the public associates the colour purple itself with Cadbury’s chocolate, Cadbury is entitled to a registered trade mark for that colour on the relevant goods.”

But he said Cadbury had not “drawn my attention” to evidence to support a finding of distinctiveness wider than for milk chocolate.

Cadbury introduced the purple Dairy Milk wrapper in 1914 as a tribute to Queen Victoria.