Cloudy skies ahead for Aldi – Thatchers reigns victorious over Aldi’s imitation cider

Posted: 11/02/2025

The Court of Appeal recently handed down a decision in which it partly overturned the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court’s (IPEC) judgment and found that Aldi's packaging took unfair advantage of Thatchers' well-known trade mark. 

Thatchers alleged that its registered trade mark (depicted below) was being infringed by Aldi’s own brand Taurus cloudy lemon cider product (also depicted below). 

Thatchers	Aldi

The Court of Appeal only had to consider one aspect of the case that went before the IPEC, that being infringement of the Thatchers mark under section 10(3) of the Trade Marks Act 1994. In respect of this, the only issues for the Court of Appeal to address were: 

1. whether the Aldi sign gives rise to a link in the mind of the average consumer between the Aldi sign and the Thatchers mark; and
2. whether the Aldi sign takes unfair advantage of, and/or is detrimental to the distinctive character or repute of, the Thatchers mark. 

Thatchers argued that Aldi intentionally mimicked the appearance of the Thatchers mark when designing the appearance of the Aldi sign. In doing so, it adopted a design that even one of Aldi’s own design team considered to be dangerously similar to the Thatchers mark. 

The court was inclined to agree with the allegations, noting that the Aldi sign had departed manifestly from Aldi’s ordinary house style (examples of which can be seen in the image below).

Three specific changes to the ordinary Taurus design were highlighted: 

1. the Taurus (and ‘cloudy cider’) wording was printed in black on a pale yellow background;
2. the sign included, for the first time, images of fruit; and
3. the curved lines were less prominent (due to the combined effect of the pale yellow colouring and the presence of images of fruit). 

The judge reached the ‘inescapable conclusion’ that such changes can only have derived from an intention by Aldi to remind consumers of the Thatchers mark and ‘convey the message that the Aldi Product was like the Thatchers Product, only cheaper’. The judge therefore concluded that the Aldi sign would give rise to a link and in doing so Aldi had taken advantage of Thatchers’ mark. 

It is also noteworthy that despite the UK’s departure from the EU, the Court of Appeal in this case opted to toe the line with the EU ruling in L’Oreal v Bellure.  Aldi invited the court to depart from L'Oréal v Bellure, but it declined to do so. Lord Justice Arnold noted that L'Oréal v Bellure provides a principled basis for taking decisions about unfair advantage. He further noted that departure from L’Oréal v Bellure would cause considerable legal uncertainty.  

It is clear that Thatchers may not have experienced such good fortune had it not registered its device mark. This reinforces the importance of robust trade mark protection when enforcing brand rights and battling imitators.  

Aldi has voiced its intention to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court so this may not be the end of the road for this dispute.

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