Sweden bans M&M’s logo over trademark dispute

The Svea Court of Appeal has said that the logo is too similar with the lower case ‘m’ used by the chocolate covered peanut brand Marabou.

This mean that Mars will no longer to able to advertise  its infamous logo used on packaging and on the colorful chocolates in the Scandinavian country.

The court also said that Kraft had the exclusive rights to the trademark, but Mars could use the M&M’s in upper-case in corporate communications which was not a trademark violation.

Mars said: “We have always believed no confusion exists” between the two products and that it would “assess the next steps for our beloved brand in Sweden.”

If Mars does not appeal then it will be forced to use the new capital M&M logo in Sweden from July onward. This is not the first time that Mars has been under copyright infringement. Mars did not sell M&M’s chocolates in Sweden until 2009.

This was to honor an earlier agreement with Marabou which has been using the lower case “m” on its chocolate bars since the 1960s.

Marabou is owned by American food and drinks company Mondelez  which also owns the Cadbury and Toblerone brands.

This is also not the first chocolate related trademark battle to be fought recently. In January, Nestle lost its case to trademark the finger shape of its KitKat bars.

A British court ruled that a Norwegian bar  called Kvikk Lunsj, was entitled to use the same shape which is ironically also owned by Mondelez.