“ Seeing Red”
In marketing, the answer to the question “what’s in a name
?” is “a very great deal of money.”
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| Online Press Coverage of the Redwell Brewery and Red Bull Story in August 2013 |
‘Me too’ products try to piggy back on the efforts of brand
leaders products. They have to stay clear of infringing copyright, patents and
intellectual copyright.
We hear regularly of
titanic fights on Intellectual copyright, patents and trademarks from the likes
of Apple and Samsung etc.
Biting
the Bullet ! ( Once bitten twice shy ?)
In the drinks sector there have been past cases such as in
2012 Red Bull won a High Court bullfight with a rival firm Sun Mark.
Austrian firm Red Bull GMBH claimed that Sun Mark infringed
trademarks by naming a drink Bullet, and
using the advertising slogan "no bull in this can".
Sun Mark, and associated shipping firm Sea Air & Land
Forwarding, disputed the claim.
But a High Court judge sided with Red Bull GMBH, following a
hearing in London.
Mr Justice Arnold heard that Red Bull GMBH sold a drink
called Bullit
as well as Red Bull.
Red Bull GMBH said trademark rights to the word Bullit
and the words Red Bull had been breached.
The judge said Sun Mark's use of Bullet created a "clear likelihood of confusion",
and added that the "no bull ..." slogan took "unfair advantage of the repute of Red Bull".
Sun Mark, and Sea Air & Land Forwarding, did infringe
trademarks, he concluded.
Defending the brand
names, trade marks is strategically significant and tactically important..
However brand policing, if clumsily executed can create
short term unfavourable publicity in the form of ‘David and Goliath’
confrontations which attract media attention.
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| Example of unflattering on line poll during the Red bull / Redwell story |
The ‘free’ publicity and raised profile of the fledgling
micro brewer Redwell from Norwich has probably been a boon to the eight
employee company. The story has also raised the profile of the design work on the
bottles and other merchandise created by
third year graphic designers at Norwich University of the Arts.
However there must
have had some heartbeat skipping moments for the directors of the micro brewer, when
they received the first and follow up correspondence of Red Bull’s Brand Tsar
Herr Jeserznik from Austria a few days
ago.
Red Bull’s brand enforcement manager, wrote to the
microbrewery to lodge a complaint asking
that Redwell withdraw its trademark application as the names are apparently
too similar.
Redwell is named
after Norwich’s Redwell Street.
The letter stated
that the name “comprises Red Bull’s
earlier trademark ‘red’ as a whole, which is a prima facie for the similarity
of signs.”
“Moreover, all trademarks consist solely of
English words and contain the common element ‘red’. The term ‘well’ is merely
descriptive and therefore of no distinctive character at all.
Furthermore the term ‘bull’ and the term ‘well’
share the same ending and just differ in two letters.
“The ending ‘ll’ is identical and therefore the
terms Red Bull and Redwell are confusingly similar from a visual as well from a
phonetical point of view.”
 |
| Just some of the things that make for a brand |
In media reports of his letter, Mr Jeserznik said : ‘The term
B-U-L-L and the term W-E-L-L share the same ending and just differ in two
letters.
‘The ending (L-L) is identical and therefore the terms
RED BULL and “Redwell” are confusingly similar from a visual as well as from a
phonetical point of view.’
He went on to say “ that consumers would be confused by the similarity of the
two brands.”
 |
| One of the bars at the 2013 CAMRA Great British Festival of Beer 2013,held at London's Olympia |
I noticed going round
the various themed bars there were beers called Red Cullin from the Isle of
Skye, Kempton an East Sussex Brewery had a beer called Red - a hop-forward Amber Ale. Big fruit flavours balanced against a complex malt backdrop, or
Hawkshead (Cumbria) Red Rich flavoured
with lots of fruitiness and good hop flavour with lingering after taste.
There was Coggerrhall Gold from Essex Brewer Red Fox ( a Golden Ale with intense lemon, grapefruit and lychee aroma/flavour
with a small percentage of wheat).
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| The Biggest Pub in London ? Great British Festival of Beer London Olympia 13-17th August 2013 |
Well, should Redwell’s bottled beers meet CAMRA’s exacting
standards for real ale in a bottle
(RAIB) for beer that is unpasteurised and contains yeast and enough
fermentable sugars to allow for a slow secondary fermentation in the bottle,
they might well want to leverage profile further. They were not to be found at
the Norfolk district bar at this year’s show.
Now that Red Bull has retreated from its initial threatening
behaviour ,the short term poor publicity of being ‘branded’ “Red Bully” in
the online coverage will probably have little long lasting adverse publicity of
their image.
Indeed it could be seen an alert to any potential competitor
large or small to be extremely wary of infringing on its brand names and
trademarks when registering a trade mark.
Related Links
Patently absurd Patent Trolls
BBC ‘s Rory
Cellan-Jones excellent programme
on Radio 4
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