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| Budweis Today / Wikimedia Commons / Norbert Aepli |
This
fascinating trademark dispute finds its roots nearly 800 years ago in the
Middle Ages, and it never seems to have ended.
In the quaint European
town of Budweis (or Böhmisch Budweis, today's České Budějovice), a certain form of beer
has been brewed since it was dubbed "Budiwoyz" by King Ottokar II of Bohemia in 1245.
King
Ottokar was originally educated for the role of an ecclesiastical
administrator. However, after the death
in 1247 of Ottokar's older brother and the heir of Bohemia, Ottokar
himself became the heir.
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| Statue of King Ottokar II |
According
to popular oral tradition, Ottokar was profoundly shocked by his brother's
death and did not involve himself in politics, instead becoming focused on hunting and drinking heavily. Ottokar also founded the town of Königsberg, the namesake of yet another beer. He became, so to speak, the original King of Beers.
Centuries
later, in 1876, Adolphus Busch and his friend Carl Conrad, a liquor
importer, developed a "Bohemian-style" lager, inspired after a trip
to the region, including the now-famous Budweiser. The name Budweiser is
genitive, meaning "of Budweis."
By the end of the 20th Century, American
company Anheuser-Busch and Czech company Budejovicky Budvar Narodni,
had both sold beer in the United Kingdom under the name "Budweiser"
for decades.
In 2000,
the UK Court of Appeals held that both Anheuser-Busch and Budvar were permitted
to register "Budweiser" as a trademark in the UK because there was
"honest concurrent use" of the mark by both companies. That is,
both companies had been simultaneously using the name for a long period of time
without any significant adverse effects on the marketplace.
However
in 2005, Anheuser-Busch applied for an order under Article 4(1)(a) of EU
Directive 89/104 that Budvar's existing registration be rendered invalid and that it be declared the only legitimate source of Budweiser in the United Kingdom. Budvar also apparently declared itself the "original" Budweiser.
The UK
Court of Appeals referred a number of questions to the Court of Justice of the
European Union, including:
"Does Article 4(1)(a) apply so as to enable
the proprietor of an earlier mark to prevail even where there has been a long
period of honest concurrent use of two identical trade marks for identical
goods?" The Court of Justice of the European Union found that the
circumstances of this dispute were so exceptional as to justify concurrent usage by both companies.
The European Court
of Justice said that the proper interpretation of the relevant law means that
the owner of an older trademark cannot obtain a declaration that an identical
later trademark designating identical goods is invalid in circumstances where
there has been a "long period of honest concurrent use of those two trademarks" and that situation has not had (nor is likely to have) an adverse
effect on the essential function of the trademark, which is to guarantee the
origin of the goods. The Court of Justice dismissed the existence of some
documented cases of actual consumer confusion as too marginal to overcome its conclusion.
In the end, it would seem that the original King of Beers' legacy was to encourage a bit of brawling nearly eight centuries after his death.
