KitKat’s Four Fingers Fourth Time Unlucky in Trademark Row
- U.K. appeal judges reject Nestle’s trademark over bar shape
- EU court rejected trademark protection for shape in December
Bars of KitKat chocolate, produced by Nestle SA, sit arranged for a photograph in London, U.K., on Monday, Dec.7, 2009. Nestle SA, the world's biggest food company, will start certifying some KitKat bars in the U.K. and Ireland as Fairtrade, following Cadbury Plc, which started producing mass-market Fairtrade chocolate this year.
Photographer: Jason Alden/BloombergThe four-finger KitKat isn’t a distinctive enough shape to warrant a trademark, U.K. Court of Appeal judges said Wednesday, marking a fourth unsuccessful attempt by owner Nestle SA to protect the famous chocolate bar.
The decision follows two British rulings and a European judgment in the decade-long efforts to trademark the famous candy bar. Mondelez International Inc.’s unit Cadbury U.K. Ltd. had challenged the latest appeal. The EU General Court ruled in December that chocolate didn’t meet the bar required to deserve a European Union-wide trademark protection.