News

Coca-Cola has won a legal battle to ban production and sales of the packaging for drinks rival Yoplait's Dizzy because its shape is too close to the bottle of its own Blak brand.

The Paris Court of Appeal ruled on 27 May that the Yoplait bottle, which is on sale in France and across Europe, too closely resembled that of coffee-flavoured soft drink Coca-Cola Blak.

The ruling also prohibited the use of all advertising media and promotional material relating to the Yoplait product, which launched last October, in its current packaging.

Both bottles are aluminium and feature a waist commonly associated with Coca-Cola's classic glass bottle. However, the Dizzy bottle is brightly coloured, whereas the Blak packaging darker in colour.

Law firm Bird & Bird's Paris office took the case to the Court of Appeal after the Court of First Instance initially ruled out the resemblance between the bottles.

The Court of Appeal, however, upheld Coca-Cola's complaint, ruling that the "deliberate taking-over, without there being any technical need, of the combination of characteristics of the Coca-Cola bottle at issue makes interference in the rights of the latter at the least likely".

Isabelle Leroux, the intellectual property partner at Bird & Bird who represented Coca-Cola in the case, said: "The Coca-Cola bottle is a world-wide symbol of the brand and we are pleased the Court has recognised the genuine risk of infringement with the Dizzy product".

Dizzy, a milk-based fizzy drink, first launched in the 250ml bottles in October last year.

Yoplait did not respond to enquiries from Packaging News regarding the case.