The plaintiff sold the well-known ‘Budweiser’ beer in the US, but it was not generally available in the UK, being sold in American military bases and in a few duty-free shops. However, the beer was widely known throughout the UK because of the plaintiff’s publicity efforts as well as tourist and business traffic between Europe and the US. The defendant sold its own beer under the same name. The right to a trade mark was challenged.
Held: Neither side was making a false representation; there was a dual reputation in the mark and name ‘Budweiser.’ Oliver LJ said that the plaintiff could ‘legitimately claim . . a reputation as the [brewer] of a beer, Budweiser, with a substantial section of the public’. The question for the court, then, was ‘whether this reputation associated with a beer which, for practical purposes, nobody could buy [in the UK], constituted . . goodwill in any relevant sense’ and asked whether the plaintiff’s name could be said to be an attractive force for custom in the UK.He answered no, saying: ‘[O]ne asks oneself ‘what custom in this country in 1973 was brought in by the knowledge of members of the indigenous British public of the [plaintiff’s] Budweiser beer?’ And the answer must be that there was none, because however attractive [the British public] may have found the idea of drinking the [plaintiff’s] beer, they could not get it. In so far, therefore, as anyone was misled by the defendants’ use of the name ‘Budweiser,’ the [plaintiff] could suffer no damage either by loss of sales, for there were none at that time and none were contemplated, nor by loss of reputation, because if there was any such loss (which seems highly improbable) the reputation was quite unconnected with either an ability or a willingness to supply.’
Judges:
Oliver LJ
Citations:
[1984] FSR 413, (1984) 4 IPR 260
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
See Also – Anheuser-Busch v Budejovicky Budvar, narodni podnik ECJ 16-Nov-2004
Agreement establishing the World Trade Organisation – Articles 2(1), 16(1) and 70 of the TRIPs Agreement – Trade marks – Scope of the proprietor’s exclusive right to the trade mark – Alleged use of the sign as a trade name. . .
See Also – Budejovicky Budvar Narodni Podnik v Anheuser-Busch Inc ChD 19-Feb-2008
. .
See Also – Budejovicky Budvar Narodni Podnik v Anheuser-Busch Inc CA 20-Oct-2009
The parties had long disputed the use of the trade marks ‘Bud’ and ‘Budweiser’ for their beers. The claimant now said that the defendants had made an abusive registration under the 1994 Act, by requesting a declaration that the registration by the . .
Cited – Hotel Cipriani Srl and Others v Cipriani (Grosvenor Street) Ltd and Others CA 24-Feb-2010
The claimants owned Community and UK trade marks in the name ‘Cipriani’. The defendants operated a restaurant in London using, under the licence of another defendant, the same name. The claimant sought an injunction to prevent further use of the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Intellectual Property
Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.377524