Stripes on sports clothing and the words used to sell chewing gum occupied some of Europe's finest legal minds yesterday resulting in court defeats for both Adidas and Wrigley.
Officials struggled to explain the nuances of the two rulings - handed down by the European court of justice in Luxembourg - but both appeared to be setbacks for two of the world's biggest household names.
In the case of Adidas, the German sportswear firm was trying to prevent a Dutch firm called Fitnessworld from using a double-stripe motif on its sport clothing suspiciously similar to Adidas's three-stripe design.
Adidas argued that Fitnessworld's clothing could confuse the public and said its own brand image risked being damaged since consumers might hold it responsible for the quality of Fitnessworld's clothing.
But the court said there was no trademark infringement and that Fitnessworld was only using the two-stripe motif for decorative purposes.
"The proprietor of a trade mark with a reputation cannot prevent the use of a similar sign viewed purely as a decorative motif," it ruled.
However the court hedged its bets, adding that there would be a problem if the similarity was so great that it "has the effect that the public establishes a link between the sign and the mark without necessarily confusing them".
Wrigley's legal wrangle was more clear cut. The American company had wanted to trademark its 89-year-old Doublemint brand on an EU-wide basis but was told yesterday that it could not.
The court decided that the word Doublemint was used to describe the product and said that other chewing gum manufacturers might want to use it.
Wrigley had argued that Doublemint was a new combination of words that helped consumers immediately identify the product.
Lawyers said the ruling could have far reaching implications.
"This ruling will make it more difficult for firms to register trademarks that could be descriptive," said Clarke Graham of Marks & Clerk.