Chiquita bananas, 'blue oval' cannot be trademark protected: EU Court ruling

The characteristic blue and yellow oval of the Chiquita banana does not qualify for protection as an EU trade mark: neither the shape (a banal geometric form) nor the colour scheme give it adequate distinctiveness.

This was decided by the EU Court of Justice in Case T-426/23 Chiquita Brands v EUIPO Compagnie financière de participation.

The history of Chiquita began in 1870, when Captain Lorenzo Dow Baker bought the first 160 banana boxes in Jamaica, to resell them in Jersey City. Then the arrival in Europe, where it has been circulating for decades. Even so, in the judgement just published, the judges emphasise the anonymous nature of the oval: according to them, it does not possess 'easily and immediately memorable characteristics'; moreover, they write, 'oval-shaped labels are commonly used in the banana industry, as they are easy to apply to curved fruit.

The ruling marksthe second victory for Compagnie financière de participation (a competitor of Chiquita Brands). Back in May 2023, the same European Union Office for Intellectual Property (Euipo) had held that the blue and yellow oval lacked character to distinguish fresh produce, including bananas, and that this feature had not strengthened with use.

Hence, Chiquita Brands appealed to the General Court of the European Union, which upheld the same decision.
In particular, the US company Chiquita Brands was accused of not having presented sufficient evidence to support the identifying force of the oval in Europe: most of the evidence referred, in fact, to only four Member States. Moreover, in almost all of the evidence, the mark appears together with the word 'Chiquita', which is considered a strengthening element.