Coke and Pepsi settle trademark lawsuit
The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo have settled a trademark lawsuit over PepsiCo’s Trop50 juice packaging design, which Coca-Cola had claimed was too similar to that of its Simply juice range.
Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but US District Judge Sim Lake signed an order to dismiss the suit late last week.
Coca-Cola had alleged that PepsiCo was trying to piggyback on the success of its billion-dollar Simply brand by confusing consumers with similar packaging, while diluting the quality of the Coke juice brand.
Coca-Cola introduced its Simply juice line in 2001 with Simply Orange, and Simply Grapefruit and Simply Apple juices followed. The design is a carafe-style bottle with an oversized green cap.
PepsiCo started selling Trop50 stevia-sweetened orange juice in 2009, and introduced a redesign in August, which features a carafe-style bottle with a large green cap.
