A branding court case about a jar of coffee with a glass topper has been settled in favour of Australian family owned brand Vittoria.
Douwe Egberts, a company founded in the Netherlands 1753, and the maker of Moccona, took exception to Cantarella, the owner of Australia’s Vittoria, releasing a 400-gram instant coffee product in a cylindrical jar with a glass stopper lid.
However, the Federal Court has decided that Vittoria's own version of freeze-dried instant coffee didn’t infringe Douwe Egberts’ trade mark.
Douwe Egberts had claimed the use of its glass jar infringed a registered trade mark, engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct, and committed the tort of passing off.
Moccona-branded instant coffee was launched in Australia in 1960 and the word “Moccona” was registered as a trade mark in Australia.
Archival advertisements were used in the court case to track the shape and sales of Moccona over decades.
The court was told Moccona was not always sold in a glass jar with a glass stopper. An advertisement for Moccona instant coffee appeared in a 1960 issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly showed a tin can and not a glass jar.
“From the advertisement as a whole, I find that Moccona instant coffee was marketed at the time of the advertisement in both tins and jars,” the judge said.
However, he couldn’t conclude that the jar used at that time was in any way similar to the current shape.
However, a photograph sourced from the National Archives of Australia, taken in a supermarket in 1977, showed various coffee products for sale on shelves, including Moccona-branded instant coffee in a cylindrical glass jar with a glass stopper lid.
Judge said the evidence establishes that “Vittoria” is a well-known brand name of coffee in Australia.
“Whatever the nature of the relevant market for the purposes of other legal questions, it would be inappropriate to isolate the reputation of Vittoria to coffee products other than instant coffee," he said.
“Consumers of instant coffee are likely to be familiar with the trade mark Vittoria as a brand of coffee products, and are not likely to draw a blank as to the commercial source of instant coffee if it is labelled as Vittoria.
"Rather, consumers would understand that instant coffee labelled as Vittoria instant coffee comes from the same commercial source as other coffee products labelled with that brand, even if they have never seen Vittoria-branded instant coffee before.
“For all of these reasons, there is no real chance that the Vittoria 400-gram product’s appearance would be likely to lead the public to believe that Cantarella’s goods are the goods of the applicants (Douwe Egberts).
“Nor is Cantarella’s use of its get-up likely to mislead or deceive persons familiar with the applicants’ product to believe that the two products are associated, having regard to the state of the knowledge of consumers in Australia of the applicants’ product. “
Cantarella said the legal action cost a significant amount in legal fees and very few family-owned coffee companies would have been able to afford such litigation.
“Vittoria’s 400g Freeze Dried Instant Coffee jar provides fair competition in a 400g market segment that had been dominated by Douwe Egberts for many years," the company said. "More competition can only mean better deals for Australian consumers.”
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