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Oatly loses trademark battle against British farm over oat milk
- vorpalhex 5y agoOatly makes a good product but disappointed to see them trademark bullying. Their ice cream alternative is pretty good too.
- FairlyInvolved 5y agoThey sort of have to, you can't selectively enforce trademarks like you can with other IP
- simonswords82 5y agoWell in a sense yes but also they can pick and choose their targets more carefully. For starters - PureOaty sounds nothing like Oatly. Secondly, it's made on minuscule scale at one farm from what I can make out.
- setr 5y agoI don’t think size matters for this kind of thing — if they grow, and you didn’t enforce action when they were small, you don’t have much claim when they’re large (and the violation is worth more, and they’re more established in it, and they’ve built more of a brand around it). but yeah Oaty vs Oatly might have been reasonable but PureOaty is quite the stretch
- function_seven 5y agoNo they don't. This is a common myth when it comes to cases like this. If the defendants had been selling their product with the exact same name, or ripping off their logo directly, then you have a point.
- zinekeller 5y ago》No they don't. This is a common myth when it comes to cases like this. This is the UK, where digital reproductions of public domain documents do get a copyright. While I agree they overstep here (especially that a regular customer would see the two products differently), IP laws in UK are much more sensitive with these issues.
- simonswords82 5y agoMy exact thoughts, my wife and I have been fans of Oatly for a time. It's the only oat milk I've tried that tastes somewhat like cow's milk. I always felt their branding and overall approach was on point which makes this quite out character and a total dick move on their part.
- INTPenis 5y agoThey're also partly owned by the state-owned China Resources holdings company. That said, I still buy their products regularly. And I'm proud they started in my home town.
- anu7df 5y agoIndeed. The only oat milk or for that matter any non-milk milk that I like in my coffee. I don't see the similarities at all in the branding or packaging. Like oatly, glad they lost.
- ajmurmann 5y agoHave you tried the Chobani Extra Creamy? I now like it even better than Oatly.
- lucb1e 5y agoExpensive though, at least in Germany it's twice the price of normal milk and they don't even have to hold cows. I understand it's also a smaller market but still, I wonder if this is really warranted. It also won't help less determined consumers switch away from dairy products, though luckily there are knock-off brands that also taste nearly the same.
- ajmurmann 5y agoCow milk is also highly subsidised in the EU and sold at closer to zero margin because of the high control over the market relatively few retail chains have, especially in Germany. Oldy but goody: https://www.kuechenstud.io/kuechenradio/episode/kr_121-milchmann/ https://www.kuechenstud.io/kuechenradio/episode/kr_121-milch... Edit: obviously we shouldn't subsidize industrial farming and its carbon emissions and instead charge for these negative externalities. We are all paying for this cheap milk consumption with our climate.
- labster 5y agoIf dairy products get more expensive, people will just switch to eating more meat. People outside of subsistence economies choose food on desires more than on price. I suspect far less negative environmental externality than you think. TL;DR If bacon costs the same as cheese, might as well get bacon.
- ajmurmann 5y agoBy the time you price in all negative externalities, meat would of course be even more expensive.
- lucb1e 5y agoAfaik cheese might actually be worse than bacon, I think pig meat was about on par with cheese and only cow meat was worse (because cheese is so co2e-intensive, not because pig is so good), but I understand your general point.
- vanilla-almond 5y agoI'm glad that Oatly lost the court case. The name and packing design of the other brand looked nothing like the Oatly design. It's baffling that Oatly even took this matter to court. It's interesting that fresh, pasteurised cow's milk is cheaper than a carton of oat milk which is approximately 90% water + oats and thickeners. Almond milk is even worse: approximately 95-97% water + 2-3% almonds and thickeners.
- knuthsat 5y agoWhen it comes to price, that's what government subsidies do for the cow's milk and high demand does for the oat milk. Although, I've seen Temple Grandin's methods live and a milk farm with milking robots basically runs itself (all cows just walk to the robot to be milked and the robot finds the teats with a bit of computer vision). But yes, other than a good soy milk, most of plant-based milks are just empty calories.
- barrkel 5y agoWell, the Oatly Barista Edition matches cow's milk for nutritional content surprisingly closely - fat, carbohydrate, vitamins, minerals and so on. We give it to our toddler, who's allergic to cow's milk protein.
- knuthsat 5y ago1g of protein per 100mL is not as much as cow's milk. Although, human milk also does have around 1g of protein per 100mL, so I guess it's fine for toddlers.
- arthurcolle 5y agoTell me more about the milking robots fellow traveler, I need some entertainment after 6 hours of meetings today.
- robbedpeter 5y agoMilkbots and the teat detectors were great opening for Metallica!
- sshumaker 5y agoI used to think that. Then I started wearing a continuous glucose monitor (levels) for longevity reasons. Holy crap, a latte with Oatly spikes my blood glucose like crazy compared to whole milk. There’s way more sugar in there vs fat and it really causes a strong insulin response. That isn’t the kind of thing you want to be consuming long term.
- Wohlf 5y agoA good rule of thumb is low fat = high sugar and vice versa.
- spotman 5y agoYes agreed. Oatly is horrible for you. It's one of the worst Oat milks they sell in my store. (when comparing by nutrition facts). It is so bizarre this alternative milk that goes around. I am totally onboard with finding an alternative to save cows from inhumane practice, however, very little of the alternative milk that is out there is anywhere near as healthy as normal milk. Meanwhile anyone can produce any type of alternative milk and people think they are buying health food.
- vnchr 5y agoThey are broths, not milks. No teats? No milk.
- calvano915 5y agoLike peanut butter isn't butter. Yet I don't need to hear people complain about it whenever nut butter is brought up.
- lurquer 5y agoAnd a peanut is neither a pea nor a nut.
- tshaddox 5y agoFunny enough, it's not nut butter either, because peanuts are not nuts. And for that matter, they're not even peas!
- mixmastamyk 5y agoLove my legume-paste and jelly sammiches!
- function_seven 5y agoYes, and tomatoes are "actually" fruits, and peanuts are "really" legumes and almond butter is "not really butter." "Milk" is a fine term for any opaque liquid, white-ish in color. Especially when it substitutes well for cow's milk. Coconut milk, rice milk, almond milk, oat milk, and soy milk are well established at this point.
- adtac 5y agomilk of magnesia!
- function_seven 5y agoOh no. Adding this to your coffee is probably a bad idea. I'm going to start a campaign to rename it Broth of Magnesia to avoid such mishaps.
- jfengel 5y agoHeadline has been slightly altered (or A/B tested). The original headline is "Glebe Farm", rather than "British farm". That original headline is also slightly misleading, since it's really "Glebe Farm Foods", which is a manufacturer as well as a grower. It's not an enormous corporation; I saw an estimate of its revenue at $7 million. But this headline has already prompted one remark that suggested this was about the "milk" part. It's not. It's one manufacturer suing another over the name of their oat milk.
- uxcolumbo 5y agoReally disappointed in them. How is Glebe Farm Foods [0], a small business, a threat to Oatly? If Oatly really cared about sustainability then they'd congratulate a small producer joining the oat drinks industry... also an opportunity to generate positive PR, i.e. not doing business as usual etc. This stunt just turned me off their brand. I think consumers are clever enough to differentiate between Oatly and PureOaty. [0] https://www.glebefarmfoods.co.uk/about-us/ https://www.glebefarmfoods.co.uk/about-us/ Edit: clarity.
- ajmurmann 5y agoIn essence companies are forced to be litigious about their trademark. If they don't defend them or become generic the trademark is lost. Even if Oatly believes that there is little to no risk in consumers confusing PureOaty, this might become a liability in future lawsuits
- uxcolumbo 5y agoThanks for clarifying, but they have no case here - even the judge agrees. Would be interesting to know what they've actually trademarked? That no other brand can use a shade of blue on their packaging when selling oat drinks? I can understand if Glebe Farms called their product Oaty, but they called it PureOaty - doesn't even start with the same letter and their packaging looks different, not as polished as Oatly's packaging. Edit: In the BBC article they claimed the 'y' is the offender. But oaty is an adjective, hence the name PureOaty to create a product name.
- zamalek 5y ago> [Article] A spokeswoman for Oatly said the company would not be appealing the decision. Oatly clearly agrees, too. The judge declared their brand/trade dress safe.
- pbhjpbhj 5y agoIt's just not true though. In the UK the only reasonable way that it might be conceived that Oatly would lose their many trade marks is acquiescence - they have to give way to a registered trade mark for a period of five years for that to occur. Degeneration (aka genericisation) is laughable far from a possibility in this case. I think https://www.ipo.gov.uk/t-challenge-decision-results/o32919.pdf https://www.ipo.gov.uk/t-challenge-decision-results/o32919.p... discusses most of the pertinent precedents. In USA, for example in Abraham v. Alpha Chi Omega the trademark holders (AXO) had failed to sue for 50 years, they still came away with a result that Abraham could only use licensed decals on his paddles henceforth. Register, pay your fees, ask people to acknowledge your mark, ... no need to be a sue-happy jerk. Of course nearly all the advice you find is from IP law firms saying you need to sue everyone who even looks at your trade marks sideways. Any caselaw refs that show I'm wrong gratefully received. This represents my personal opinion, unrelated to my employment and is not legal advice.
- laurieg 5y agoMy first thought is "How absurd! They're not alike at all!" My second thought is "What nuance is the news story missing?" I wonder if a bit of Gell-Mann Amnesia［1］ is in play for my first reaction ［1］https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/
- Accacin 5y agoI enjoy oat milk but my day to day milk replacement is regular unsweetened soya milk. I do get oat milk once a week from my milkman so no idea what brand it is and it comes it a glass bottle that's collected the week after so pretty much zero waste.