Lidl & Tesco Clash On Logo Aisle Over Yellow Symbols
Photo 208461685 © Jessica Girvan | Dreamstime.com
The supermarket wars are heating up, and not in the way you think. Lidl and Tesco are going cart to cart over a yellow circle symbol that the former argues creates “some form of deception.”
The German budget chain is suing Britain’s largest grocer for infringing both a trademark and copyright, a claim that Tesco has countered.
Lidl’s logo features a yellow circle with a red ring, against a blue background.
Photo 192375862 © Gary Hider | Dreamstime.com
In September 2020, Tesco introduced a symbol to promote its Clubcard loyalty scheme, consisting of a yellow circle with a blue backdrop.
The two encircling rivals took their dispute to the High Court on Tuesday, following Tesco’s successful appeal in November that allowed it to argue Lidl’s trademark of a yellow circle on a blue background was registered in “bad faith.” Lidl had claimed that Tesco was “[riding] on [its] coattails” by replicating its “distinctive” design, as per the Guardian.
Lidl’s lead attorney for the case, Benet Brandreth KC, declared on Tuesday that the supermarket’s core brand is “at the heart of this claim.” He stressed that Lidl has secured trademarks for both text-filled and wordless variations of its logo.
Lidl cannot discount its perception that Tesco’s yellow icon, chosen to represent low prices, is “not accidental.” The German chain has built an association with value that seeps into its yellow and blue logo, it insisted.
On Tesco’s side, its lawyer Hugo Cuddigan KC hit back by saying that to prove infringement, Lidl would have to establish that “creating a yellow circle involves sufficient artistic skill and labor to comprise the author’s own intellectual creation.”
A spokesperson for Tesco shares the company will “strongly defend” its stance that the Clubcard prices logo does not violate any intellectual property rights.
The judge will hear accounts from senior grocery store staff and customers next.
[via Retail Gazette and The Guardian, images via various sources]
