M&S and Aldi Resume Legal Battle Over the Alleged Infringement of ‘Very Instagrammable’ Gin Bottles

Pictured is the M&S light-up seasonal gin, first launched in 2020. (Photo: M&S)

On Friday, supermarket giants Marks and Spencer (M&S) and Aldi resumed a legal battle regarding the alleged infringement of highly “Instagrammable” gin bottle designs. According to Daily Mail, M&S first sued Aldi last December, claiming that the latter copied its holiday light-up gin bottle design with a “strikingly similar” liqueur product.

Aldi’s light-up gin liqueur bottle from its own-label brand, The Infusionist. This product debuted in December 2021. (Photo: Aldi)

M&S’s gold flake liqueur came in clementine and rhubarb flavors. Aldi also produced a clementine gin liqueur — joined with a rhubarb flavor.

M&S lawyers claimed that there was a “straightforward” infringement of its registered bottle designs, adding that Adli’s light-up gins gave shoppers “the same overall impression,” per Daily Mail.

Both gins appear to share similar bell-shaped bottles, edible gold flakes, wooden cork stoppers, graphics of winter forest silhouettes and the most important feature — a button on the bottom one can press to illuminate the festive liqueurs within. The two gin products pay homage to snow globes, encouraging the imbiber to shake the bottle and watch the gold flakes float and shimmer.

Denying the alleged infringement, Aldi said that the designs were “commonplace,” per Daily Mail.

When M&S first launched the light-up gin two years ago, Product Developer Jenny Rea said: “For me, the switching on of the Christmas lights is a huge festive moment, and in honour of this Yuletide tradition we are introducing a show stopping, light-up snow globe gin liqueur, complete with edible gold leaf for that extra wow factor.”

According to Daily Mail, the barrister noted that by April 2021 when M&S’s designs were registered, “both the integrated light feature, and the inclusion of gold flakes, were widely known across the sector,” according to the report.

“They would no longer have the ‘wow’ factor that would mark either of them out as a particularly significant design feature,” he continued.

M&S’s lawyer believed that the design was “very Instagrammable,” aided in popularity through the gin boom. He added that Aldi had not shown that the gin bottle features were “widespread or commonplace,” Daily Mail reported.

“The bottom line is that Aldi infringes,” he said.

According to Telegraph, M&S is seeking a High Court injunction stopping Aldi from additional alleged infringement of its protected designs, an inquiry into arisen damages from the alleged infringement and an order for Aldi to destroy or hand over anything constituting a “potential breach of the injunction.”

The court hearing concluded on Friday, with a ruling expected at a later, unspecified date.

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