Family firm’s oat milk trademark triumph
A FAMILY-RUN company sued by multimillionpound oat milk giant Oatly for alleged trademark infringement has won a legal battle against the firm.
Oatly accused Glebe Farm Foods, which specialises in gluten-free oats, of attempting to take ‘unfair advantage’ of Oatly’s trademarks with their oat drink called PureOaty.
The Cambridgeshire-based firm, run by brother and sister Philip and Rebecca Rayner, denied the claims. Judge Nicholas Caddick QC yesterday ruled in their favour. In June the High Court in London heard the farming company launched an oat milk in 2019 called Oat Drink, before rebranding it PureOaty in 2020.
Oatly’s lawyers argued that Glebe Farm Foods had infringed five of their firm’s trademarks with the PureOaty name and the drink’s packaging, as well as ‘passing off’ their product as Oatly’s.
The judge found there were similarities between the initial PureOaty and Oatly packaging, such as using the colour blue and an irregular font for the name, but these were ‘at a very general level’. Oatly’s lawyers also argued customers could be confused into believing that PureOaty was a type of Oatly product but had not produced any evidence.
Judge Caddick said: ‘I do not see that there is any risk of injury to the distinctive character of Oatly’s marks.’
He concluded: ‘That similarity is due to the presence in both the sign and the mark of the letters “oat” that are descriptive of the relevant products.’ Oatly said it will not appeal the judgment.