October 2008
Captain Beany and the Case of Credit Crunch Chocolate
Welsh entrepreneur and former electoral candidate Captain Beany, who gives away his Scottish produced chocolate named CREDIT CRUNCH for fundraising, is looking for an Intellectual Property lawyer in a potential trademark infringement case.
Selfridges, has recently been selling luxury chocolate entitled CREDIT CRUNCH at £3.99 for 150 nugget honeycomb covered nougat, which is produced by The Chocolate Society in London. A spokesman for the Society said he had never heard of Captain Beany, and “Our luxury range for Selfridges does not involve bars, they are bags of chocolate enrobed honeycomb. I think that’s quite different. We were going to register it as Hokey Pokey but thought Credit Crunch was more appropriate given the current economic crisis”.
Captain Beany applied to the UK Intellectual Property Office on 4 July 2008 to register CREDIT CRUNCH in class 30 for chocolate bars. His registration was published on 4 August 2008. There have been no objections or oppositions filed to date.
Selfridges have distanced themselves from the issue pointing out they are a distributor and not the manufacturer of the chocolates. Mr Beany, for his part, has said that he will demonstrate outside the Chocolate Society and Selfridges if they continue to sell the product.
Briffa Says
Trade mark infringement can occur when a trademark used is either confusingly similar or identical to a trademark used by another party. Having a registered trade mark entitles the owner to exploit their intellectual property rights alone and prevent others from using a similar or identical name in the same classes of goods and services.
In this situation, Selfridges or the Chocolate Society could have checked the trade mark register and upon seeing Captain Beany’s registration counter-claimed for the same name, or opposed his registration as it is in the publication period. Alternatively, they could have sought a licence from Captain Beany to sell chocolates using the name, paying him a royalty.
Having said that, Selfridges and The Chocolate Society may consider that Captain Beany’s trade mark is limited only to chocolate bars and not to chocolate nougat, in which case they could agree to continue selling whilst agreeing to get along and operate competing products with the same name.
If Captain Beany had a registered trademark the case would be far simpler. Although his rights are strong having applied to register the mark, Selfridges and the Chocolate Society may well have a case that the products are not similar. Furthermore, that CREDIT CRUNCH is a rather generic phrase in today’s economic climate and as such the rights in such a name would be limited.
For more information contact info@briffa.com