The Court in Hague, Nederland, has issued a provisional pan-EU ban against a meat burger made of plant produced by Nestle, which uses the name INCREDIBLE BURGER.
The reason for this was a registered EU trademark for IMPOSSIBLE BURGER owned by the US startup company Impossible Burger that offers food products imitating meat.
Against this mark Nestle initiated a cancellation procedure before the EUIPO based on descriptiveness and lack of distinctiveness for the relevant products.
Meanwhile, the US company responded with a lawsuit in Nederland.
The Court came to a conclusion that the Nestle’s INCREDIBLE BURGER is similar enough to still registered EU trademark IMPOSSIBLE BURGER from a phonetic, visual and partly to a conceptual point of view.
The another thing that led the Court to consider a possible immigration of the IMPOSSIBLE BURGER mark was the fact that both companies were in licence negotiations which, however, failed. In the process of these negotiations Nestle acquired some confidential and sensitive information from the US startup regarding the mark and the product.
Nestle considers to change its product name to Sensational Burger in an attempt to distinguish it from INCREDIBLE BURGER.
Source: FoodNavigator.com
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