Meat alternatives company Impossible Foods has lost a four-year trademark legal case against a Spanish independent bakery, Impossible Bakers.

The case centred around the use of the word ‘Impossible’ in the bakery’s branding. Impossible Foods filed an opposition in 2021 to try and prevent the company from registering its logo, on the grounds that it could confuse consumers due to similarities with the alt-meat maker’s own branding.

Impossible Bakers applied to register the logo – which featured the words ‘Impossible Bakers’ and a flying elephant – as a trademark across its product portfolio, which includes a range of baked goods such as bread products, pastries and cakes.

The EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) originally rejected the motion in 2023, but US-based Impossible Foods appealed to the General Court of the European Union, requesting that the contested decision be annulled.

Ultimately, the court ruled that the Spanish bakery can register and continue to use the trademark in the EU, dismissing Impossible’s appeal.

Its ruling was based on several key factors. While Impossible Foods owns the trademark for the name, the court state that the word ‘Impossible’ is ‘weakly distinctive’ and could rather be used as descriptive and ‘laudatory’ marketing language.

Additionally, the Impossible Bakers logo features additional elements such as the flying elephant and the word ‘Bakers,’ which the court noted is ‘more striking in the mark applied for, due to its larger size’ compared to the word ‘Impossible,’ making it the ‘dominant element’ of the trademark.

Impossible Bakers’ trademark also includes other visual differences such as an inverted double ‘s’ in the word ‘Impossible,’ it added.

The court therefore came to the conclusion that consumers were not likely to be confused by the two brands due to the design differences and consumers’ ability to distinguish between the two in an average shopping environment such as a supermarket.

The action was therefore dismissed, with Impossible Foods ordered to bear its own legal costs as well as to pay those incurred by Impossible Bakers throughout the case.