The applicant sought to register the mark ‘BUD’ as a trade mark in class 32 for beer. Objection was made under section 11. The parties had each disputed previously the others sales of beers under the name ‘Budweiser’.
Held: The opposition failed. The evidence showed that the use of Bud as a contraction for Budweiser was how drinkers of AB’s or BB’s beer each demanded the beer they wanted. Section 11 did not apply because ‘[w]hat would be the equity in refusing a person registration of a contraction of his proper trade mark, which cannot be complained of at all, which his customers are invariably, as the evidence runs, going to use. Of course precisely and exactly the same applies to AB’s Budweiser and the use by their customers of BUD, but I cannot think that if the substantive mark of ‘Budweiser’ in both cases can be fairly used, there can be any question of a court of equity at any time saying: ‘But you cannot possibly use the way in which your customers are going to describe it.’ The one must, as a matter of equity and justice carry the other.’
Judges:
Walton J
Citations:
[1988] RPC 535
Statutes:
Cited by:
Cited – Anheuser-Busch Inc v Budejovicky Bodvar Narodni Podnik; Budejovicky Bodvar Narodni Podnik v Anheuser-Busch CA 7-Feb-2000
The registration of two trade marks (‘Budweiser’) with the identical names was against the Act since it would appear to encourage the very confusion the Act sought to avoid. Nevertheless, where there was genuine honest concurrent use, that use might . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Intellectual Property
Updated: 01 May 2022; Ref: scu.258732