Image via Flickr / Sudeep1106
The popular British candy company now owns the rights to the shade of purple it uses to brand itself–just in time for Halloween. This marks the end of an 8-year legal fight, filled with controversy over whether Cadbury had the right to trademark a color.
It was a battle that pitted Mars bars against Flakes. After Cadbury applied for ownership rights in 2004, competing company Nestle appealed and tried to make the case that colors couldn’t be trademarked. But several years of litigation later, the high court in London found that not to be the case and made the decision to grant Cadbury the trademark. “Our colour purple has been linked with Cadbury for more than a century and the British public have grown up understanding its link with our chocolate,” the company said in a statement, welcoming the decision to allow them to “protect our famous colour purple across a range of milk chocolate products.”
So enjoy your Cadbury Screme Eggs this October and appreciate that pretty purple on the wrapper. But don’t think about using it to wrap and sell your homemade caramels at Christmastime.
[via the Guardian]
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