Coca-Cola and a Chinese competitor have failed to reach a court settlement in a dispute over the Chinese characters used in the names of their bottled drinks, company lawyers said on Friday.
The lawyers’ statements contradicted extensive reports in China’s state-controlled media saying a settlement had been reached.
Yaqing Industry and Trade has sued Coke and its local bottler, Shenmei Drinks and Food, claiming the characters for Coke’s Qoo fruit drink, labelled ”Ku-er” in Chinese, too closely resembles that of Yaqing’s Kuhai drink.
Yaqing said Coke’s labelling could mislead consumers because the characters for ”Ku” are identical in both products and the characters ”er” and ”hai” both mean child in Chinese.
The lawyers said judges at a brief hearing on the case on Wednesday suggested the sides seek an out-of-court settlement. Neither immediately accepted.
”Our condition is that they withdraw the suit before we seek an out-of-court settlement,” said Fu Qiangguo, a lawyer for Coke. He declined to discuss details of the case.
Yaqing’s attorney, Hong Shuben, said he had to consult with his clients on Coke’s demand but would urge them to reject it.
Hong said Yaqing, a local partner of Atlanta, Georgia-based Monarch Beverage, filed suit in 2002, but the court spent nearly a year attempting to get a response from Coke, which is also headquartered in Atlanta. Both sides presented their arguments at an initial hearing on October 13.
Both Fu and Hong said earlier reports in the official China Daily newspaper saying the sides had reached a settlement were incorrect.
The Chinese written language is made up of thousands of different characters, which can often have identical sounds.
Companies pay considerable attention to selecting characters for their Chinese-language products, considering both their meaning in Chinese and their aural resemblance of foreign brand names.
Coca-Cola is known in Chinese as ”Kekou Kele,” meaning ”tasty and fun”.
Yaqing has demanded Coke cease using the ”Ku-er” name, destroy products bearing the logo and issue a public apology, China Daily reported.
A spokesperson for Coke in Shanghai, Brenda Lee, was not immediately available for comment.
China Daily earlier quoted Fu as saying Coke believed the Qoo label, featuring the English and Chinese names and a cartoon-figure logo, clearly distinguishes it from Yaqing’s product.
”It’s impossible for the public to get confused,” the paper quoted Fu as saying.
Coke launched its Qoo drink in China in 2001, but its application to trademark ”Ku-er” hasn’t been approved yet, the lawyers said. Yaqing’s Kuhai trademark was registered on December 14 2001, Hong said.
In October, Chinese basketball sensation Yao Ming dropped a lawsuit against Coca-Cola’s China subsidiary after the beverage company agreed to stop using his image on packaging and apologised for doing so without his permission.
Yao, who has a sponsorship deal with rival soft drink maker Pepsi-Cola, wanted to block Coke from using his image after the company sold commemorative bottles showing Yao and two other players from the Chinese national team. — Sapa-AP