Budvar triumph in Budweiser’s Battle for Europe

Last week the European Court of Justice found in favour of Budĕjovický Budvar, against Anheuser-Busch in what has amounted to a 14-year-long trademark battle between the two breweries. The present dispute began in 1996 when the US-based brewer, Anheuser-Busch (now owned by Belgium’s InBev) applied to the Office of Harmonization for the Internal Market to register ‘BUDWEISER’ as a Community trademark for beer. The Czech brewery opposed the registration on the basis that it had the right to use the same trademark in Austria, Benelux, France, Germany and Italy.

The judgment marks the latest in a series of successes for the Czech brewery which has fought its American rivals globally in a branding war that has lasted for over a century. The German immigrant, Adolphous Busch, first used the brand name to promote beer in North America in 1875. However, when he applied for US registration in the early 1900s, Budvar tried to sue them on the grounds that they had been using the name since 1895. An agreement was eventually arrived at, whereby each brewery’s market was limited to either the Americas or Europe. However, with the subsequent expansion of the companies’ markets, this was to be a short-term truce.

In this latest dispute, Europe’s highest Court found that since Budvar was able to prove genuine use of the earlier international word mark ‘Budweiser’, Anheuser-Busch is prevented from registering the trademark across the whole of the EU. Although it cannot get a blanket trademark, it may retain the right to use the trademark in individual EU markets. However, Budvar has won the exclusive right to use the Budweiser name in Austria and Germany. This situation of exclusivity differs from that in the UK, in which both companies have been allowed to use the same trademark under the doctrine of “honest concurrent use”.

Further reading:

Case C 214/09 P, JUDGMENT OF THE COURT (Fourth Chamber), Anheuser-Busch v OHIM 29 July 2010
http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/us-czech-court.5rz
http://www.brandchannel.com/features_effect.asp?pf_id=191
http://www.budweiserbudvar.co.uk/budweiser
Budejovicky Budvar NP v Anheuser-Busch Inc [2009] EWCA Civ 1022 (CA)