cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/43030335
Plant-based drink maker Oatly has lost a long-running legal battle over its use of the word “milk” in its marketing.
The Swedish company tried to trademark the slogan “post-milk generation” in the UK in 2021 but Dairy UK, the representative body for British dairy farmers, objected.
Following rulings in several courts, the UK Supreme Court on Wednesday said Oatly could neither trademark nor use the phrase “post-milk generation”.
The long-running dispute has centred on Dairy UK’s argument that, under trademark law, the term “milk” can only be used to refer to products that come from an animal.
Begs the question, where are the nipples on the oats?
Really though, do they have to call it milk? I mean what even is plant based milk? It isn’t milk. Are they that afraid of people knowing what they’re getting that they can’t call it what it is or give it a friendly name that doesn’t mean something it’s not?
They need to talk to whoever named hot dogs. We’re all know what they are and yet they’re still popular. They aren’t dogs and they’re sold cold so… clever marketing?
Almond milk has been called almond milk for centuries upon centuries. That’s what the drink is called. Because it’s from almonds. And it looks like milk. Almond milk.
Also your last paragraph undercuts your entire point. You know that hot dogs are not dogs. Ironically hot dogs were named that because they originally were made from dog meat in Germany, back when that was more common.
We’ve been calling magnesium hydroxide “milk of magnesia” for 150 years. This isn’t some new, confusing thing.
Coconut milk would like to have a word with you
Also soy milk and almond milk.
These have been called milk for far longer than this has been a supposed issue for.
This isn’t restricted to things humans drink. Any white-ish liquid had a chance of being labeled milk. See also crop milk, milkweed, milk of magnesia, discus milk, glacial milk.
Or for a food product with a similar fight, see peanut butter. In Dutch the fight resulted in it being called pindakaas (peanut cheese).
I find it really weird when Big Dairy (and Big Meat) are overly sensitive about what competing products call themselves.
It’s not like people are going to get confused about what is what. Big Dairy just want to force people to name their product something unappealing.
It’s not weird at all, they just don’t like competition competition.
They are weird compared to society, but self consistent.
Nobody particularly wants to have to come up with branding because the dairy lobby are assholes.
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