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posted by cmn32480 on Thursday June 09 2016, @08:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the supporting-the-home-team dept.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36484245

A Swedish court has ruled that the confectionery firm Mars can no longer advertise its M&M's brand with the lower case lettering - m&m. The court ruled that the logo is too similar to the single lower case "m" used by the Swedish chocolate covered peanut brand Marabou.

If Mars doesn't appeal it will have to use the capital M&M logo in Sweden starting in July. Mars said it believed "no confusion exists" between the two chocolates.


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by OrugTor on Thursday June 09 2016, @01:20PM

    by OrugTor (5147) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 09 2016, @01:20PM (#357288)

    A trademark court doesn't have anything important to do, by definition. In an ideal world civil matters would be handled by arbitration panels staffed by people who understand the relevant laws and the domain but do not have a lawyer attitude. We get much quicker outcomes, fairer resolutions because the panels specialise in their domains and not least, lower cost. Given that corporations listen to lawyers and end up pitting "M" against "m" there should be a far superior method of resolution.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Thursday June 09 2016, @03:28PM

    by Immerman (3985) on Thursday June 09 2016, @03:28PM (#357362)

    I beg to differ - trademarks offer a valuable service to the population, and trademark courts help prevent, for example, cheap Chinese knockoffs from being labeled to look like expensive high-quality brands so they can be deceptively sold at grossly inflated prices, effectively stealing customer's money.

    Of course they probably mostly end up hearing cases of petty corporate squabbling and jockeying for tactical market advantages, but simply by existing they make more blatant violations far less likely.