Last week brought with it a new trademark infringement filing in the Federal District Court of Puerto Rico. The Contenders? Two wine makers, E&J Gallo Winery (plaintiff and alleged senior user) and Trigo Corp. (defendant and alleged junior user).
Gallo claims ownership of the trade dress used on the labels of its fruit wines.
Plaintiff's Trade Dress
Particularly, Gallo claims it owns “an inherently distinctive non-functional trade dress consisting of a combination of images of assorted fruits, creatively displayed over a clear label affixed to the bottle.” Trigo, on the other hand, produces a similar type of fruit wine and has, naturally, fruits on its labels. Trigo uses a clear label (which by itself is not functional) and has its assorted fruits on the cover.
Defendant's Fruity Dress
Gallo claims trademark infringement of its trade dress. Trigo hasn’t filed its answer yet, but I can imagine that they will resort to some sort of attack on the functionality of the trade dress or perhaps a “scenes a faire” type of defense.
The case is E&J Gallo Winery v. Trigo, 3:110cv-01239 (DRD)
EJ Gallo v. Trigo
