Argeta protects its colour as a trade mark

In this way Argeta has joined the exclusive group of 0.03 percent of brands around the world that the public recognizes merely by its design, colour or pattern, such as: Milka, Manner, Burberry, Louboutin and Whiskas.

According to available data, Atlantic Grupa is the first commercial company based in central and SE Europe (with the exception of Austria) to have succeeded in this in post-war history.

The Slovenian Office for Intellectual Property issued a decision on registration of the colour as a trade mark based on an application which, together with the results of research at the Faculty of Economics in Ljubljana – “Verifying the differentiation effect of colour in the category of pâtés”, conducted by Prof. Dr Vesna Žabkar, leader, Prof. Dr Barbara Čater, Prof. Dr Mitja Kovač and Asst. Prof. Dr Jaka Cepec, demonstrated that:

The collected empirical evidence from the study represents precisely that – it shows unequivocally that the consumer in question links the colour Pantone 159c in 61.1% of cases to the origin of the goods, that this particular orange colour has the semiotic status as a specifically – very restrictive – determined product or service (i.e. in this case Argeta pâté), that the public see this colour as a “marque” and that this kind of colour also has a differentiation effect. The research showed how the consumer in question links the colour Pantone 159C in 61.1% of cases to the origin of the goods, which is very similar to the percentage in the case of Whiskas in the Whiskas (R 1620/2006-2 (Purple)), where the percentage was 58% and where the court consequently had no reservations about registering the colour as a trade mark.

This means for Argeta that in Slovenia no one can use the stated colour on pâté and spread packaging.