// Tesco and Lidl begin High Court fight over the use of a yellow circle logo
// Lidl has said a trademark, and copyright, has been infringed, while major grocer Tesco has made a counterclaim
Tesco and Lidl have started their High Court battle over the use of a yellow circle logo.
German discounter Lidl has said a trademark, and copyright, has been infringed, while major grocer Tesco has made a counterclaim.
Lidl has a yellow circle in its main logo, and Tesco features one to list offers available to its Clubcard scheme members.
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A judge began overseeing a trial at the High Court in London on Tuesday.
Justice Joanna Smith was shown images of logos, including a yellow circle, surrounded by a red ring, containing the word “Lidl”; a yellow circle, surrounded by a red ring, with no words; and a yellow circle without a red surround and the words “Clubcard Prices” in the middle.
Barrister Benet Brandreth KC, who is leading Lidl’s legal team, said the “protection available to Lidl’s core brand” is “at the heart of this claim”.
Meanwhile, leading Tesco’s legal team is Hugo Cuddigan KC, who said that to establish infringement Lidl would need to show the judge that “creating a yellow circle involves sufficient artistic skill and labour to comprise the author’s own intellectual creation”. He argued that it does not.
Brandreth said: “At the heart of this claim is the protection available to Lidl’s core brand.
“Lidl have registered trademarks for the mark with text and for the wordless marks.
“As is apparent, the wordless mark is the device across which the name Lidl appears. Lidl say that device is distinctive of its services and goods quite apart from the name Lidl.
“Lidl have, through the vast use made of them, generated a huge reputation and goodwill in both the mark with text and the wordless mark.
“That reputation and goodwill is specifically that Lidl are a supermarket that offers value, that is to say quality goods at low prices.
“The complaint is about the uses by Tesco of an identifier for its Clubcard Prices promotion, which commenced in September 2020.”
Cuddigan said: “The heart of the dispute concerns trademark infringement, and the key mark relied on by Lidl is the registered trademark for Lidl’s well-known logo, which Lidl calls the ‘mark with text’.”
“Lidl had also procured the registration of the background to that logo – the wordless mark.
“Tesco says that the wordless mark is invalid on the basis that it has never been used, it lacks distinctiveness, and each application for registered wordless marks was made in bad faith.
“It is common ground that Lidl has only used the wordless mark, if at all, by using it within the mark with text.
“Lidl’s infringement claim itself relates to Tesco’s use of a suite of icons used to identify its Clubcard Prices promotion.”
The hearing is expected to end next week.
