An appeals court ruled Tuesday that pomegranate juice maker Pom Wonderful may ask a Los Angeles federal judge to order a rival beverage company to stop selling a pomegranate-flavored drink with a similar sounding name.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena found that the lower-court judge was in error when she decided against Pom’s motion for a preliminary injunction against Pur Beverages in the trademark lawsuit.
In the January ruling, U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Morrow said that Pom would be unable to successfully argue that consumers were confused by the two products, which have contrasting packaging.
However, Circuit Judge David M. Ebel wrote for the three-judge panel that the rival products’ names were “visually, aurally, and semantically similar,” and that the drinks were marketed to a similar audience.
“The district court’s likelihood-of-confusion finding leaves us with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed,” Ebel wrote.
The panel remanded the case back to Morrow to consider whether, in light of the new ruling, Pom met its burden of proving the other elements for a preliminary injunction.
Pom Wonderful is sold in a trademarked container that looks like two spheres stacked together. Privately held Pom Wonderful LLC was started in 2002 and is a owned by Roll Global Inc., the holding company controlled by the Los Angeles billionaire couple, Stewart and Lynda Resnick.
— City News Service