An interesting Irish High Court decision on confusingly similar whiskey brands is Irish Distillers Ltd v Cooley Distillery Plc [2008] IEHC 236, 4 July 2008 (text available in full here). The plaintiffs, owners of the well known Jameson Irish whiskey brand, were granted an injunction to stop Cooley Distillery using labels on its St Patrick whiskey that were so similar to Jameson labels as to lead customers to believe that St Patrick whiskey was from the Jameson family of products.

Cooley's St Patrick whiskey was not marketed in Ireland -- but it which was distributed in Russia by a third party who was instructed in Cooley's marketing material that (i) the St Patrick product must be placed on the shelves next to Jameson Irish whiskey and (ii) its retail price must be 18% lower than Jameson whiskey. Irish Distillers sued for infringement of its trade mark and of its copyright in the Jameson whiskey label, as well as for passing off. Cooley denied liability and claimed that thre was no likelihood of confusion since the parties' labels clearly depicted, respectively, the names Jameson and St Patrick.

The court considered that the differences between the labels, and especially the fact that the products bore different brand names, were insufficient to dispel the general visual impression of similarity. In the context of bar trade (where customers order drinks by name), there would be no problem since the names were different -- but in the context of supermarket shelf sales, confusion could result from the similarity of colour and other features of the labels.

This decision shows that, where infringing goods are made within the jurisdiction, relief will be ordered even when the damaged alleged is inflicted outside the jurisdiction.