A brother and sister have won a legal battle over multimillion-pound company Oatly over a claim their PureOaty oat milk drink infringed their trademark.
Oatly had brought legal action against Glebe Farm Foods, a Cambridgeshire-based company that specialises in producing gluten-free oats, accusing them of attempting to take 'unfair advantage' of Oatly's trademarks with their oat drink called 'PureOaty'.
Glebe Farm Foods, run by brother and sister Philip and Rebecca Rayner, denied the claims and in a judgment on Thursday, Judge Nicholas Caddick QC ruled in favour of the siblings.
During a two-day hearing in June, the High Court in London heard that the farming company launched an oat milk in 2019 called 'Oat Drink', before launching the rebranded 'PureOaty' in 2020.
Oatly's lawyers argued that Glebe Farm Foods had infringed five of their firm's trademarks with the 'PureOaty' name and the drink's packaging, as well as 'passing off' their product as Oatly's.
Glebe Farm Foods, run by brother and sister Philip and Rebecca Rayner, denied the claims and in a judgment on Thursday, Judge Nicholas Caddick QC ruled in favour of the siblings
Judge Caddick found there were similarities between the initial PureOaty packaging and the Oatly packaging, including the use of the colour blue and the use of an irregular font for the product name.
However, the judge said the similarities were 'at a very general level'.
Oatly's lawyers had also argued that customers could be confused into believing that PureOaty was a type of Oatly product, but had not produced any evidence.
Judge Caddick said: 'It is hard to see how any relevant confusion would arise from the defendant's use of the sign 'PureOaty'. In particular, the use of 'Pure' as a prefix to the word 'Oaty' and the appearance of the carton as a whole seem to me to preclude any likelihood of the PureOaty product being seen as some sort of sub-brand of Oatly.'
The court heard that Oatly
