Luxembourg: The European Union’s top court should cancel Swiss food giant Nestle’s trademark for the shape of the Kit Kat chocolate bar, the court’s top adviser said Thursday.
Nestle has been locked in a decade-long battle with US rival Mondelez, maker of Cadbury chocolate, over the four-fingered wafer biscuit, which was first sold in 1935.
The EU’s intellectual property office allowed Nestle in 2006 to trademark what the court calls the “three-dimensional shape of the ‘Kit Kat 4 fingers’ product.”
Advocate General Melchior Wathelet said the European Court of Justice (ECJ) should dismiss an appeal by Nestle against a lower court’s 2016 decision to annul the trademark.
“Nestle did not adduce sufficient evidence to show that its trademark had acquired distinctive character,” Wathelet said.
He said the intellectual property office should now “re-examine” its decision.
The Luxembourg-based ECJ often, but not always, follows the advice of the advocate general, its senior legal adviser, when making its final judgment.
The food giant specifically failed to show that the Kit Kat shape was well enough known in Belgium, Ireland, Greece, Luxembourg and Portugal, relying instead on market data from other countries, he said.
The official also said the EU court should reject an appeal by Mondelez against part of the judgment, saying it was “manifestly inadmissible.”
Nestle has already lost a legal bid in Britain — currently an EU member state but set to leave next year — to trademark the Kit Kat shape.
EU gives Nestle a thumbs down in Kit Kat finger row
EU gives Nestle a thumbs down in Kit Kat finger row
- Nestle has been locked in a decade-long battle with US rival Mondelez, maker of Cadbury chocolate, over the four-fingered wafer biscuit, which was first sold in 1935.
- The EU’s intellectual property office allowed Nestle in 2006 to trademark what the court calls the “three-dimensional shape of the ‘Kit Kat 4 fingers’ product.”
Experts clash over effect of war on oil supply
- International energy chief dismisses crisis fears * But Qatari minister warns exports could halt ‘in weeks’
BRUSSELS: International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol on Friday dismissed fears of a global oil crisis, and said there was “plenty of oil in the market.”
But he was contradicted by Qatar’s Energy Minister Saad Al-Kaabi, who said Gulf oil producers could halt exports within weeks because of the US-Israel-Iran war, sending crude prices to $150 a barrel.
The war on Iran and Tehran’s retaliatory attacks across the Gulf have already sent crude prices soaring by about 20 percent, fanning fears of a fresh spike in inflation that could hit the global economy. Shipping through the critical Strait of Hormuz has all but dried up.
US President Donald Trump has pledged to protect ships passing through and promised further action to “reduce pressure on oil,” but prices have remained elevated. Brent crude, the global benchmark, was up 2.77 percent on Friday to nearly $88 a barrel.
However, Birol said: “There is plenty of oil, we have no oil shortage. There is a huge surplus in the market. We are facing a temporary disruption, a logistical disruption.”
Nevertheless, Al-Kaabi insisted there would be pressure on oil supplies “in two to three weeks” if tankers were unable to pass through the Strait.
“Everybody that has not called for force majeure we expect will do so in the next few days that this continues. All exporters in the Gulf region will have to call force majeure,” he said. “Everybody's energy price is going to go higher. There will be shortages of some products and there will be a chain reaction of factories that cannot supply.”
Qatar halted its liquefied natural gas production on March 2, as Iranian retaliation for US and Israeli strikes continued to target Gulf countries.
