Look out for KopyKats! EU set to cancel KitKat’s trademark

SUPERMARKET shelves could be hit with a wave of copycat KitKats after the EU yesterday moved to cancel the snack’s trademark on its four-fingered shape.

Makers Nestle had hoped that EU judges would end a long-running battle with competitors by protecting the design.

But, in a serious setback, the EU’s top legal adviser yesterday insisted it was not ‘distinctive’ enough.

The advice, which is likely to sway the European Court of Justice’s final decision, is the latest move in Nestle’s battle with Cadbury. KitKats won EU protected status in 2006 after Nestle argued the ‘iconic’ design had been consistent since Rowntree’s

first KitKat, then called Chocolate Crisp, was sold in 1935. That was annulled after a legal bid by Cadbury’s in 2016, leading to Nestle’s appeal.

in a legal opinion, the European Court of Justice advocate general Melchior Wathelet told judges: ‘Nestle did not adduce sufficient evidence to show that its trademark had acquired distinctive character.’