Coca-Cola, Swedish Family Fight Over Name
AP - 4/15/03
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - The cola wars have entered
a new dimension in Sweden.
This time, the Coca-Cola Co. isn't battling
Pepsi-Cola International, but a family with the surname Urge.
That also happens to the name of a citrus drink bottled by Coke
that's available only in Norway.
Coke has registered the name as a trademark
in Sweden, but not launched in there. In the United States, the
caffeine-loaded drink is called Surge.
Members of the Urge family tried to repeal the
trademark, concerned that their name would become associated with
a soft drink.
Swedish law prohibits registration of trademarks
that use someone else's family name. But the Court of Patent Appeals
ruled in favor of Coca-Cola last month, saying the English word
"urge" was more commonly known than the family name,
which is pronounced "OOR-geh."
Members of the Urge family didn't immediately
return calls seeking comment Tuesday.
There are six people in Sweden listed with the
last name Urge, according to Statistics Sweden. Four of them are
involved in the court case.
Richard Sjoeberg, a Coca-Cola spokesman in Sweden,
declined to comment on the legal battle, saying it was a matter
between patent authorities and the Urge family.
Surge was introduced in the United States in
1997 as an answer to Pepsi's Mountain Dew, but production was
scaled back because of low demand, according to SaveSurge.org,
a Web site run by Surge aficionados.
___
On the Net:
Coca-Cola: http://www.coca-cola.com
Surge: http://www.savesurge.org
While this story wasn't actually a feature about
SaveSURGE.org, it's great publicity for SURGE! It was featured on
sites like Yahoo!
and iWon
and who knows how many other news sites and publications.
