Diageo in copyright dispute with Sainsbury’s
Share
Drinks group Diageo has launched legal action against Sainsbury’s over alleged copyright infringement of its Pimm’s brand.
The move follows the launch of the supermarket’s Pitcher’s brand in April, a gin-based drink to which lemonade and fruit can be added.
The drinks maker, which also owns the Guinness, Bell’s and Smirnoff brands, says Pitcher’s infringes its intellectual property rights.
According to reports, Sainsbury’s says it will “vigorously defend” itself against the claims, adding that its customers “are savvy enough to know exactly what they’re buying, the clue is in the name, and we see no basis for such a claim.”
Sainsbury’s, as one of the UK’s largest supermarkets, is one of Diageo’s biggest customers.
The company says in its own statement that although it would “be inappropriate for us to comment further “, the supermarket is a “valued customer of Diageo and we hope will continue to be so for many years. It is Diageo’s firm intent that our strong trading relationship should not be affected by this discrete dispute”.
Readers' comments (3)
Anonymous | Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:56 am
Pitcher very clearly took all it's visual cues directly from Pimms to make it easy to signpost in store. For Sainsbury's to suggest their customers are "savvy enough to know exactly what they're buying... etc" is hilarious - if they really believed that, why would the design be so close to that of the market leader. Also, if they do have a such a relaxed attitude to visual packaging design then perhaps they wouldn't mind if Asda brought out a design that exactly resembled the visual equities of 'Taste the Difference' but was called 'Spot the Difference'.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
adrienne | Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:59 am
i shall dash out and buy pitchers immidietly and then give you my verdict
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Peter Groves | Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:52 am
I'd expected marketing Week to know the difference between copyright and trade marks. When will "lookalike" arguments finally go away, I wonder? There's never going to be trade mark infringement (Sainsbury's set the standard with their Classic Cola years ago, so no-one will go there again) and unlikely ever to be passing off. Brand owners need to learn, however reluctantly, to live with it. Or deal with the market power of the big retailers some other way.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment