The Supreme Court rules that 'Donut' is a registered trademark and not a generic name.

BarcelonaThe Supreme Court has accepted that the word Donut It is a registered trademark in Spain and, therefore, can only be used by the Mexican food group Bimbo, the owner of the brand, and not as a generic term to refer to the traditional pastry nuts.

The litigation began in 2017, when Bimbo's Spanish subsidiary took the use of the concept to court. Donut by the Madrid-based catering company Atlanta Restauración Temática. This company had marketed some nuts under the name ofRedondoughtswhich were described as "donuts" on the label.

An initial ruling by a Madrid commercial court sided with Atlanta, considering it a generic word. To justify this, the court relied on the definition of "dónudo" (with a closed accent on the o) provided by the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), which accepts the word in Spanish to describe any ring-shaped pastry. Bimbo appealed to the Supreme Court, which has now overturned the commercial judge's decision. As for Catalan, the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (IEC) does not include the word (with or without the accent) in its normative dictionary.

The word Donut It is a derivation of doughnutFried pastries and sweets of various shapes typical of the northeastern United States. In the early 19th century, when the first references to the word appear, they were ball-shaped and quite small, from which their name may derive: in English, dough means too much (of bread or cake) and nut means new (the nut).

A "trademark infringement"

According to the new decision of the High Court, despite the generic use of the word accepted by the RAE, Donut It is still a trademark belonging to Bimbo and, therefore, cannot be used to describe products similar to the Mexican manufacturer's Donuts. "The ruling recognizes its extraordinary reputation, granting it maximum legal protection and confirming that the unauthorized and descriptive use of the term Donut "The use of a trademark for commercial purposes constitutes a violation of trademark rights," Bimbo stated in a press release issued this Tuesday. "The inclusion of a trademark in dictionaries and its colloquial use does not entail a loss or limitation of the exclusive trademark rights of its owner, which must be respected in commerce." The Supreme Court's decision follows the same line as its 2012 ruling, when...to ban the bakery company Europastry sell products described as Donuts after a lawsuit from Panrico, which at the time owned the brand until Bimbo acquired the Catalan company in 2015.