Legal showdown between First Choice Fresh Choice in trademark dispute

THE battle of the milks - First Choice vs Fresh Choice - raged before the Gauteng High Court, with the owner of First Choice failing in its bid to interdict its competitor from using the Fresh Choice logo, which it claimed was similar to their trade mark.

- ZELDA VENTER

Woodlands Dairy, long-standing, family-owned dairy operator in the Eastern Cape, turned to the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, to object an order against its competitor. It produces an extensive range of dairy products including UHT milk, butter, yogurt, keeted and sold in outlets throughout South Africa. It sells these products under the name and trademark First Choice and it owns this trade mark in South Africa.

Sansom Farming CC is also a dairy operator, on a substantially smaller scale than the applicant. It is based in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality in the Eastern Cape.

It produces milk and other dairy products under its registered trade mark, Fresh Choice.

Woodlands Dairy's case was that it has statutory and common law trade mark rights in the First Choice trade mark as well as the domain name fresh choice.co.za as it is well-known and has acquired a secondary meaning as a mark of origin for its dairy products.