Takis Biltong wins case

Takis Biltong fought a nine-year battle all the way to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) to protect its trademark against infringement by Mexican-registered company Grupo Bimbo, which was found to be selling tortilla chips in SA under the name Takis Fuego. A Moneyweb report notes that case was decided in favour of Takis Biltong in December 2023, the name and the logo design being deemed so similar as to cause confusion in the minds of consumers. The Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) overturned an earlier ruling by the same court and ordered that the registration of the trademark Takis Fuego be cancelled. Taki Aristides, co-owner of the Takis Group, told Moneyweb this effectively nullified the decision of the court. This is cold comfort for Takis Biltong, which said it is losing market share and suffering brand degradation so long as these products are allowed to enter the local market. The Takis Fuego brand is owned by Grupo Bimbo, one of the largest bakery companies in the world, with about 140 000 employees. It owns more than 100 brands, such as Thomas Bagels, Harvest Gold bread, Bimbo Blanco and Takis Fuego (outside of SA). Takis Fuego applied for registration of its trademark in June 2012 for use in ‘bread, pastry, corn flour chips, corn extruded, wheat extruded and pop corns’. Though it operated in different food categories, Takis Biltong had established itself as a well-known snack brand in SA. It became alarmed when another ‘Takis’ brand appeared on the market, looking remarkably like its own.

Takis Biltong declared a dispute with Grupo Bimbo in 2015 on the grounds that its Takis Fuego brand was too similar to its own and would cause confusion in the market. The Moneyweb report says it applied for the cancellation of the Mexican Takis trademark, and the matter eventually found its way to the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria), which ruled in favour of the Mexican company in 2018. That ruling found the two marks were not necessarily identical and traded in two different trademark categories. Takis Biltong took the matter on appeal, and managed to have this earlier ruling overturned. The Appeal Court ruled that the Takis Fuego logo is visually deceptive or confusingly similar to the Takis logo. The use of different fonts and the addition of words such as ‘Barcel’ and ‘Fuego’ to the Takis name by the Mexican company was not sufficient to remove the deception or confusion. The case eventually ended up in the SCA, where it was again decided in favour of the local company. The SCA ruled that the word ‘Takis’ is what makes it distinctive, placing it in a category of unique trademarks such as Samsung, Toyota and Motorola. The Mexican company, by adding the word ‘Fuego’, did not remove the confusion that would likely arise in the minds of consumers.