Asked to sort out the sheep from the goats, the High Court decided they are both the same when it comes to trade mark protection for milk-based products, giving protection to Landcorp’s SPRING SHEEP trademark, preventing Hong Kong-owned Blue River Dairy using SPRING GOAT as a trademark for sale of its product in New Zealand.
Spring Sheep Dairy LP is a joint venture between government-owned Landcorp and SLC Ventures LP.
It challenged Blue River’s 2017 Intellectual Property Office application for registration of SPRING GOAT as a trademark. It claimed SPRING GOAT was sufficiently similar to its existing SPRING SHEEP trademark as to cause confusion where they competed in the same product market.
Blue River and Spring Sheep are two of three main sheep milking operators in New Zealand.
In the High Court, Justice McQueen said it is the word ‘spring’ which does the heavy-lifting in both brands. Both use the word ‘spring’ as the first word.
This is likely to confuse customers, she ruled. Even an attentive customer would likely perceive SPRING GOAT to be a brand extension of SPRING SHEEP and attribute both products to the same source, she added.
Blue River’s application to register SPRING GOAT as a trade mark was disallowed.
Separately, Blue River asked that Spring Sheep Dairy’s existing registration for SPRING SHEEP be revoked for non-use.
Failure to make commercial use of a trademark for a three year period can lead to revocation. This ‘use it or lose it’ rule is intended to prevent clogging the trademark register with unused trademarks.
The High Court reviewed Spring Sheep Dairy’s use of its SPRING SHEEP trademark for the period 2016–2019; the period surrounding Blue River’s filing for SPRING SHEEP’s revocation.
Revocation was refused.
The High Court heard evidence of Spring Sheep Dairy selling branded SPRING SHEEP product to cheesemakers since 2015 and a branded gelato product from the following year.
In addition, brand awareness existed with preliminary steps taken by Spring Sheep to have its infant formula stocked by supermarkets across New Zealand.
Finally, Blue River asked that Spring Sheep’s trade mark protection be limited to sheep milk product only.
Stating that this would be pernickety, Justice McQueen allowed that the trademark could be used across milk-based products derived from other animals.
Blue River itself did not limit its application to only goat milk products in its unsuccessful application to trademark SPRING GOAT, she noted.
Blue River markets cows’ milk, sheep and goat milk products.
Blue River Dairy LP v. Spring Sheep Dairy NZ Limited Partnership – High Court (5.02.26)
26.072