Forcing a Point? Oatly Attempts to Register "Barista" as a Trademark!

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According to foreign media reports, the globally renowned oat milk company attempted to register "Barista" as a trademark in New Zealand this September, but faced opposition from Bidfood, a major food wholesale company in New Zealand.

In September of this year, Oatly submitted an application to register "Barista" as a trademark to the New Zealand Intellectual Property Office, which was immediately opposed by Bidfood. Bidfood stated that the term "Barista" has been used on various plant-based milk products in the country for nearly a decade and is considered a generic term, as no company had previously registered it as a trademark.

However, Oatly claimed that "Barista" is not a generic noun because over the years, people have immediately associated the term "Barista" with their company's oat milk, rather than other plant-based/dairy alternatives.

Bidfood argued that this was unreasonable justification! While it may seem like "no harm, no foul," if this trademark registration were approved, it would set a precedent for such nonsense claims from companies like Oatly.

Only a company like Oatly (the original text used Monster Energy's as an example) would attempt to litigate over descriptive terms or try to register a generic term already widely used in the market as a trademark.

Ultimately, the New Zealand Intellectual Property Office agreed with Bidfood's position, stating that consumers would expect the term "Barista" to be used on dairy alternatives (such as soy milk) with exactly the same meaning as oat milk. Dairy alternatives compete with each other to some extent, and consumers make direct comparisons when they are sold together.

Dr. Valentyna Melnyk, the IPO and expert witness who served as the "referee" for this incident, also stated that dairy alternatives imitate consumer demand for dairy products, and the term "Barista" should not be used to distinguish different types of dairy alternatives.

Similar Cases in China

Recently, some domestic merchants have been attempting to register the generic term "Geisha Coffee" in the coffee industry as their own product trademark, and some of these trademarks have already been approved by the Trademark Office.

The primary significance of trademark registration is that the registrant has exclusive rights to the trademark, which is protected by law. Others dare not imitate it, otherwise they can be sued for infringement and receive economic compensation. Originally intended to protect the exclusive rights of trademark registrants, it now brings significant potential risks to various industries.

Generic terms refer to names of certain products or services that are legally or conventionally established and widely used within a specific scope. Every industry has some generic terms, but trademark examiners are not familiar with the generic terms in every industry.

Therefore, although Article 11 of China's Trademark Law stipulates that generic terms cannot be registered as trademarks, there is no way to completely prevent the registration of generic trademarks that are not widely recognized by the public.

The Future Impact

If "Barista" had actually passed this trademark registration, what would baristas be called in the future?

Image source: Internet

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