Storm in a trademark teapot

20 12 2008 United Kingdom

A large German company has instructed lawyers to force a small Surrey tea room to stop using a teapot in its logo.

The Tea Box, a boutique-style tea room in Richmond, Surrey, is defending its teapot logo against a claim by the German tea merchant Teekanne GmbH that it has infringed its trademark.

The Tea Box, a traditional British tea room, opened in Richmond, Surrey, in 2007. It was founded by Jemma Swallow and her partner Mike de Souza in response to a lack of establishments on the high street where you can buy a great cup of tea.

Providing an antidote to the coffee shops that flood most shopping centres, The Tea Box serves and sells a wide range of loose leaf teas from some of the best tea gardens in the world.

Jemma designed a hand-painted ‘modernist’ logo for their new tea shop, featuring an optical illusion of a teapot combined with tea cup viewed from above. In an attempt to protect their intellectual property, The Tea Box applied to the UK Intellectual Property Office last year to register their logo, only to find a German company claiming that it cannot be used in the 27 states of the European Community because the two companies' logos are too similar.

Teekanne GmbH, based in Dusseldorf, is one of the world’s largest tea merchants and reportedly makes 6 billion tea bags a year. Their advertisements have featured Sean Connery and Steffi Graf.

‘Teekanne’ is German for ‘teapot’ and their logo is a very old style of tea pot or more like a kettle. British consumers have said the Teekanne logo can’t be mistaken for the sign designed for The Tea Box. Even the spouts are facing in different directions.

"We are currently locked into a legal dispute that could cost us thousands of pounds,” said Jemma Swallow. “If we lose this battle, not only may the shop go under, it will mean no other company trading in tea in the UK will be able to use an item associated with tea everywhere - the teapot - to represent its business."

Mike de Souza said: "We feel like we're being bullied by a massive company. What they want is to have the sole use of the teapot logo trademark in Europe, which we think is bonkers. How can you trademark a teapot?"

Footnote -

Earlier this month, European judges refused to renew Lego’s registered trade mark – the classic red brick - after a rival toy maker successfully appealed to the EU trade mark office. British tea shop owners should take heart that the European judges agreed that one company could not have a monopoly over a functional shape like a brick.

However, one legal expert says that, because of the subjective nature of trade mark law, it is impossible to predict whether the UK Intellectual Property Office will uphold the German company’s teapot claim or not.

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