UK bottled water company in trade mark dispute against PepsiCo

UK bottled water company ‘Life Water’ is suing soft drink giant Pepsi, because the name of Pepsi’s product ‘SoBe Lifewater’ is too similar to their product name.

Singer Adele’s boyfriend, Simon Konecki, started ‘Life Water’ in 2006 to generate funding for his charity, Drop4Drop. Life Water provides clean water to developing countries through the sales of their product.

Pepsi responded to this trademark dispute that Life Water is pure water and SoBe Lifewater is a vitamin drink. Pepsi said that they are aware of the ‘Life’ trademark in the UK however believe confusion in the market is unlikely given the ‘different nature of the products’.
 Pepsi already sells their products in the US and now they want to register it as a global trademark in other countries. Pepsi say that there are ‘no current plans’ to use SoBe Life Water as a trademark in Britain, but that it will not be ruled out as an option.

Mr Konecki stated that the reason for his distress was that the name ‘Lifewater is almost identical to Life Water, and we’d be incredibly disappointed for anyone to confuse our ethical, charitable and carbon neutral water with one that doesn’t share those values’.

In a bid to strike a deal with Pepsi, Mr Konecki proposed allowing Pepsi to use the name if a pledge would be made to make donations from the sales to the charity, Drop4Drop. Pepsi refused this offer.