PepsiCo and Danone have become embroiled in a yoghurt trademark battle in Russia.
Wimm-Bill-Dann, PepsiCo’s local dairy processing subsidiary, has asked the country’s trademark watchdog to remove rights held by Danone for its flagship yoghurt brand Activia.
WBD has filed a case against Danone “to cancel Activia’s registration in some product classes hat are not in use”.
The move follows Danone’s complaint to Rospatent, Russia’s bureau dealing with intellectual property rights, that the packaging for WBD yoghurt brand Bio Max was too similar to that used for Activia. Rospatent turned down Danone’s complaint two weeks ago.
Danone, however, believes it can defend its trademark. “We disagree with the arguments given by WBD and we have collected the evidence of use of our trademark Activia, evidence that from our point of view is sufficient to defend our position,” a spokesman told just-food on Thursday on the eve of the hearing on WBD’s bid, which took place on Friday.
Jerom Rozendaal