use lame arguments and perverted logic? Oatly tries to register "barista" as a trademark!

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According to foreign media reports, a world-renowned oatmeal milk company tried to register "Barista" as a trademark in New Zealand in September, but it was opposed by Bidfood, a large New Zealand food wholesale company.

In September this year, Oatly submitted the registration of the trademark "Barista" to the New Zealand intellectual property Office, and Bidfood immediately objected. Bidfood said that the word "Barista" has been used in various plant milk products in the country for nearly a decade and is a common word, and no company has registered the word as a trademark before.

But Oalty says "Barista" is not a common term, because over the years, people immediately think of their own company's oatmeal milk when they see "Barista", rather than other plant milk / dairy alternatives.

Bidfood believes that this is a preemptive argument! This may seem like a "no harm, no foul", but if you approve the registration of the trademark, you will see the nonsense of the trademark from Oalty.

In such an attempt to sue for descriptive ownership, or to register a generality that has been widely used in the market as a trademark, only Oalty (originally using the term Monster Energy's Monster Energy) can do it.

In the end, the New Zealand intellectual property Office agreed with Bidfood and said consumers would expect the word "Barista" to have exactly the same meaning as oatmeal milk when applied to dairy substitutes, such as soybeans. Dairy substitutes compete with each other to a certain extent, and consumers will have a direct comparison when they are sold together.

Dr. IPO, who "judged" the incident and Dr. Valentyna Melnyk, an expert witness, also said that dairy substitutes mimic consumer demand for dairy products and that the word Barista should not be used to distinguish between different types of dairy substitutes.

Not long ago, some domestic merchants are registering their own product trademarks in the universal ranking of "Rose Summer Coffee", and some of the trademarks have been examined and approved by the Trademark Office.

The greatest significance of trademark registration is that the trademark registrant has the exclusive right to use the trademark, protected by law, others do not dare to counterfeit, otherwise they can sue for infringement and obtain economic compensation. Originally used to protect the exclusive rights of trademark registrants, but now it has brought great potential risks to various industries.

A universal name refers to the name of a commodity or service that is legally or conventionally used within a certain range. Each industry has some common names in the industry, but trademark auditors do not know the common names between each industry.

Therefore, even if the general name in Article 11 of the Trademark Law of the people's Republic of China cannot be registered as a trademark, there is no way to completely prevent some universal name trademark registration which is not widely known by the public.

If "Barista" really passes the trademark registration this time, what will baristas be called in the future?

Photo Source: Internet