One drink, two companies, and a dispute hanging on the walls! The Paulaner brewery has taken the Berentzen Group to court. The reason: a cola and orange drink that allegedly looks far too much like the Paulaner specialty. But the accusation that Berentzen uses a similar design is not the only twist in this case - wallpaper also plays a role. How does it work? Read on to find out!
Dispute over color combinations - who is really stealing whom?
It's about a cola and orange drink from Berentzen, which is being compared to the classic Paulaner Spezi. Paulaner believes that the color combination of the drink is far too reminiscent of its own "Spezi" design. The Munich-based brewery argues that Berentzen deliberately wanted to create a similarity to Spezi with the design of its packaging in order to benefit from the drink's popularity.
But Berentzen is fighting back: according to the Emsland-based drinks manufacturer, the choice of color for the drink was simply inspired by the wallpaper the marketing boss had in his student dorm room. An unusual but understandable background, isn't it?
A wallpaper as a design template - that almost sounds like an apology!
At Berentzen, the story almost sounds like an absurd excuse: "The colors for the packaging were inspired by the wallpaper of our head of marketing," explains company spokesman Thorsten Schmitt. An idea so creative that you almost want to say: "Why not?" Basically, it's not hard to see that cola and orange are a classic color combination. Orange for flavor and brown for cola - it's an old classic. Is it really necessary to sell this as a design revolution?
Nevertheless, the dispute remains, and the Munich Regional Court will soon have to decide whether there really has been a trademark infringement here. Berentzen has until the beginning of February to respond to the lawsuit - and the company plans to defend itself against it.
A bitter taste remains - what does this mean for the industry?
The case is not the first in which Paulaner has been at the center of a legal dispute. Back in 2022, Paulaner filed a lawsuit against the Augsburg brewery Riegele, which wanted to protect the name "Spezi". The judge ruled in favor of Paulaner, and the cola-limo mix was allowed to continue to be called "Spezi". This shows that it is not just about design, but also about trademark rights and name protection.
In the beverage industry, it is becoming increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd. Everyone who launches something new on the market has to deal with the question of whether the design or name is not too reminiscent of an existing product. Because one thing is certain: in the world of brands, every little thing counts - and the competition never sleeps.
The lawsuit is a "marketing stunt"?
So what do we make of this dispute? Is this really design theft or rather a clever marketing ploy? In a world where Trademarks are almost everything, it can be worthwhile for companies like Berentzen to provoke a legal dispute themselves - after all, the shitstorm in the media and the attention are also a valuable commodity. I think this case shows how thin the ground between inspiration and imitation often is. You could almost think that the design of this cola/orange mix was deliberately chosen to spark precisely this discussion. And therein lies the real problem: perhaps it's less about the colors and more about the headlines.
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