Cadbury Loses Trademark Battle over its Purple Colour

Cadbury has hit yet another snag in its decades-long fight to own the right to brand purple, which it has used on its chocolate bars since 1905. Cadbury was unsuccessful in its attempt to patent a purple color, according to the Court of Appeal.

“The symbol consists of the color purple (Pantone 2685C) as seen on the shape of the application, added to the entire visible surface, or is the primary colour applied to the whole visible surface, of the packaging of the goods,” according to Cadbury’s original 1995 application.

Since the patent only covers “chocolate in bar or tablet shape,” Cadbury filed for a new trademark in 2004, so it could expand into the areas of cake, chocolate in general, and drinking chocolate.

Cadbury, however, was unable to monopolize the trademark for its variety of purple-covered chocolate goods due to competition from Nestle, its largest chocolate rival. Nestle objected to the patent, arguing that the purple hue had no distinguishing characteristics and was too broad to include a wide variety of products.

The UK Court of Appeal dismissed the trademark application in October 2013 as a result of Nestle’s resistance, believing that the definition did not properly describe the name.