Australian beverage company Bickfords, which makes ‘Real McCoy’ whiskey mixed drinks, has successfully opposed rival drink maker Frucor Suntory’s bid to trade mark the same name for a fruit juice product, with an IP Australia delegate finding the beverages were similar.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will conduct a one-year inquiry into supermarket pricing and competition amid concerns by consumers.
Vittoria’s Cantarella Bros has lodged an appeal in a long-running trade mark stoush with Italian rival Lavazza after a judge found the coffee manufacturer’s two registered ‘Oro’ marks should be cancelled because the word was previously used by another coffee supplier.
A judge has approved a 24 per cent group costs order in a consolidated class action against a2 Milk, noting the complexity of the claims against the dairy giant and saying a GCO would align the class action lawyers’ interests with group members’.
Noumi has largely lost its bid to shield from a class action parts of its inhouse counsel’s evidence supporting a privilege claim over 3,000 documents seen by Ashurst and PricewaterhouseCoopers during an investigation into the company’s financial position.
Former Bellamy’s Australia director Jan Cameron has been found guilty of two counts of breaching the Corporations Act, following an investigation by the corporate regulator over her failure to disclose her stake in the baby formula company.
Swiss food and drink giant Nestle has resolved a lawsuit by a2 Milk over a trade mark for infant formula, agreeing to withdraw an application with IP Australia to register the mark, NAN A2.
After losing its argument that class actions are excluded under the Fair Work Act, the union representing fast food workers has filed a class action of its own, alleging McDonald’s denied shift managers compensation for pre- and post-shift work.
KFC has failed to block Grill’d’s HFC trade mark, with a judge finding the marks are not deceptively similar and that Grill’d did not act in bad faith despite parodying the fast food giant in advertising for its ‘Healthy Fried Chicken’ products.
In a victory for the ATO, a judge has found that payments made by Schweppes to PepsiCo as part of a bottling and distribution agreement, which did not expressly provide for payment of a royalty for use of the company’s IP, were royalties and should be taxed accordingly.