Red Bull lawsuit against British gin producer Bullards rejected

01-Nov-2022 - USA

British gin producer Bullards has won a dispute against Red Bull over the similarity of its name. The U.K. Intellectual Property Office (IPO) rejected the Austrian fizzy drinks company's request that Bullards, which employs about 10 people, abandon a range of goods and services, including events and energy drinks and soft drinks, due to likelihood of confusion. "Bullards is in no way a logical brand extension of Red Bull," ruled the official in charge, Allan James, according to the British news agency PA.

Bullards representative Russell Evans expressed happiness. Some people had advised him to comply with the request, he said. "But it just seemed wrong to just give in to Goliath, so we decided to take a stand, and I'm glad we did," Evans said. "It just begs the question of why they think they can do these things." The defense cost him 30,000 pounds (35,000 euros), Evans said. Red Bull said, "We don't think it's appropriate to comment on such a legal matter."

Bullards had been founded in 1837 as a beer manufacturer and importer of wine and spirits. In 1963, the company was acquired by Watneys Brewery and the brand was discontinued - until 2015, since when the company has focused on gin. Red Bull was founded in 1987, 150 years after Bullards.

"Even though we don't make energy drinks at all, I didn't want to concede to them that they had the right to and we didn't," Evans pointed out. That Red Bull had also demanded that Bullards stop making events was "ridiculous," he said. Bullards' attorney Luke Portnow

criticized, "It pains me to see such unnecessarily aggressive - and expensive - enforcement practices continue in this area of the law." He said it is legally and financially unfair to have to defend such lawsuits. "The decision confirms the mere fact that it is not an adequate basis for finding indirect confusion that the two marks have a common element," Portnow said./bvi/DP/mis (dpa)

Note: This article has been translated using a computer system without human intervention. LUMITOS offers these automatic translations to present a wider range of current news. Since this article has been translated with automatic translation, it is possible that it contains errors in vocabulary, syntax or grammar. The original article in German can be found here.

https://www.yumda.com/en/news/1178297/red-bull-lawsuit-against-british-gin-producer-bullards-rejected.html