Yahoo Finance Marks & Spencer in row with pub chain over ‘rip off’ craft beer t-shirts
Marks & Spencer is removing a t-shirt from sale after it was accused by a craft beer company of “ripping off” its brand.
The Craft Beer Co, which runs a collection of bars in London and Brighton, tweeted a picture of an M&S t-shirt which bore the tagline “Proper Good Beer – Craft Beer Co” on Thursday.
Hey @marksandspencer what’s the idea with these T shirts!?
Can we expect a royalties cheque in the post!?
Surely one Iconic British Institution shouldn’t be ripping off another…!!? 😃 pic.twitter.com/LYjZ337Wnq— The Craft Beer Co. (@thecraftbeerco) April 12, 2023
The company wrote: “Can we expect a royalties cheque in the post!? Surely one iconic British institution shouldn't be ripping off another....!!?”
It added: “It really is hard to believe in 2023 such things can be signed off by someone at a huge PLC”.
It comes after M&S has spent recent years battling Aldi and Lidl in the courts over its intellectual property.
In February it won a year-long dispute with Lidl after a court ruled the discounter had infringed M&S's copyright by making gin bottles that featured LED lights that were overly similar to the UK firm’s designs.
A dispute with Aldi regarding its Cuthbert the Caterpillar cake, which M&S said was overly similar to its Colin the Caterpillar cake and sued the discounter over, ended in February 2022 when the two retailers reached a settlement.
Martin Hayes, co-founder of The Craft Beer Co, said: “They're the people that made such a big thing out of Colin the Caterpillar cakes, which is quite funny.
“I don't see the point of getting angry at the moment. I'm smiling. M&S is an iconic British name on the high street I'm sure it's a genuine sort of mistake of some description.”
Mr Hayes added: “It is a terrible design. They must be paying someone that's 30p an hour to come up with that design.”
An M&S spokesman said: ‘We take intellectual property very seriously and, while the t-shirt was designed in good faith, we’ve taken the decision to remove the product from sale so we can investigate further.”
M&S is not the only supermarket locking horns with the discounters in court over copyright claims.
Lidl challenged Tesco last year over its use of a yellow circle it used to promote its clubcard scheme, which the German firm said was overly similar to its own.
