£38 million could not stop Coca-Cola. One man in Antwerp stopped MrBeast. Same question, both times

In February a hearing officer told Britvic, the drinks group behind Robinsons, Tango and J2O, that the Wimbledon tennis championships and £38 million of sales were not enough to stop Coca-Cola using one of the two words in FRUIT CREATIONS. In May a Board of Appeal told the most followed creator on YouTube that 346 million subscribers were not enough to get MRBEAST past a burger mark owned by Sinan Hadzija, who runs Beastie Burgers, a restaurant on Nationalestraat in Antwerp.

I read both decisions in full, not the summaries, because the summaries got things wrong that matter. The two cases were decided by the same question. They also share a date that nobody quotes.

The first case

Britvic is the drinks group behind 39 brands sold in more than 100 countries, and part of the Carlsberg Group. Its oldest brand is Robinsons, the squash that has been served at The Championships at Wimbledon since 1935. Robinsons launched FRUIT CREATIONS in 2018, a premium squash sold under the Robinsons name, and registered it. The Coca-Cola Company applied for COCA-COLA CREATIONS, as a word and as a logo, for drinks in class 32, in November 2021. Robinsons Soft Drinks Limited, the Britvic company that owns the mark, opposed.

Britvic brought everything. Nearly 35 million litres and over £38 million of FRUIT CREATIONS sales in 2020 and 2021. A £6.4 million campaign. A launch event with celebrities. The Championships at Wimbledon, where Robinsons has been the official squash since 1935. The hearing officer accepted all of it. FRUIT CREATIONS had genuine use, its distinctiveness had been enhanced by that use, and it had a moderate reputation.

The opposition failed on every ground anyway. In COCA-COLA CREATIONS the word that carries the mark is COCA-COLA. In FRUIT CREATIONS the two words are one phrase, and CREATIONS on its own has no distinctive role. A consumer seeing both would put the shared word down to coincidence, and would not think Coca-Cola had dropped its own name and put FRUIT in its place as a brand extension. Decision O/0126/26, 17 February 2026, 48 pages. Costs are still to be decided, because a without prejudice offer on costs was made and the office will rule on it separately.

The second case

Beastie Burgers is a burger restaurant on Nationalestraat in the centre of Antwerp, founded by Sinan Hadzija, who registered BEASTIE BURGERS as a Benelux word mark in 2020 for burgers, buns, sauces and restaurant services. Beast Holdings, the company behind the YouTube creator MrBeast, applied for MRBEAST as an EU trade mark in August 2023, for snacks, sweets and soft drinks. Hadzija opposed.

The goods were not the same. Snacks and soft drinks against burgers and restaurants were found similar only to a low degree. It did not matter. BEAST is five of the six letters of BEASTIE, it is the most distinctive part of both marks, nobody says the word "burgers" when they name the brand, and the courtesy title MR tells you nothing about who made the drink. The Board decided the case for the French-speaking public, for whom "beast" means nothing, and for the English-speaking public, for whom BEAST and BEASTIE share a meaning, and found confusion for both.

The applicant's argument was that everyone knows MrBeast. The Board did not doubt it. It found that no Benelux subscriber figures had been submitted, that YouTube audiences skew young, and that a part of the public large enough to matter would not know him. Fame was not disbelieved; it was beside the point. The opposition was upheld in full and the appeal dismissed on 29 May 2026. Hadzija's costs for the entire proceeding, opposition and appeal, were fixed at €1,170, of which €320 was the opposition fee.

What decided both

Not money. Britvic's did not help it. Not fame. MrBeast's did not help him. Hadzija did not even claim a reputation for his mark; BEASTIE BURGERS was assessed as an ordinary mark with ordinary distinctiveness and won on that.

Both tribunals asked two questions. Who filed first, in this territory, for these goods. And is the word the two marks share the word that makes the earlier mark distinctive.

BEAST is. It means nothing to a large part of the relevant public, so it is fanciful, and it is the whole of what is distinctive in MRBEAST once the courtesy title is set aside.

CREATIONS is not. It is an ordinary English word that alludes to what a drinks maker does, and in FRUIT CREATIONS it is welded to FRUIT. Britvic's evidence could lift the mark from low distinctiveness to medium. It could not make a common word carry the mark on its own against COCA-COLA, a word every consumer knows.

For a business owner that is one sentence. The register protects the part of your name that only you use. If that part is a common word, no budget makes it yours. If it is a word nobody else can claim, an ordinary registration will fight for you against anyone.

The two windows

COCA-COLA CREATIONS was published on 3 December 2021. The UK window is two months, extendable by a free month. Robinsons opposed on 3 March 2022, the last day.

MRBEAST was published on 14 September 2023. The EU window is three months. Hadzija opposed on 13 December 2023, the last day.

In both cases someone was watching the journal and moved at the end of the window. I notice this because watching journals is what my company does, and because most businesses do not. The window is the only cheap moment in the whole process. Miss it and the mark registers, and what is left is invalidation, which is slower, harder and priced differently.

The two bills

Robinsons opposed in March 2022, was heard in October 2024 and got its decision in February 2026. Four years, with a specialist IP firm on one side and a global law firm on the other, and the costs still to come.

Hadzija opposed in December 2023, won at first instance in August 2025 and on appeal in May 2026. Two years and nine months. The other side was ordered to pay him €1,170.

The official fees are small at both offices. The years are long. The difference between a cheap outcome and an expensive one is settled before the window closes, by which word you chose and whether you were looking.

What I would do with this

Pick the distinctive word and register that. A word mark protects the name in any font or layout. If your name is a distinctive word plus a description of what you do, the fence is the distinctive word. Nobody owns the description.

Check the name before you build on it. A company name is an address, not a right. A search of the registers takes seconds and tells you whether someone filed first.

Watch the journal. Two months in the UK, three in the EU. Both opponents above used the last day. They could, because they saw the filing in time.

If you are going to rely on reputation, bring evidence for the territory. Subscribers worldwide did not count in Antwerp. Sales in Benelux, press in Dutch and French, and survey data by age would have.

For the practitioners reading

Three points the summaries flattened. The Board decided MRBEAST for both linguistic publics and raised the aural similarity to above average because a descriptive second element goes unspoken, so the outcome does not rest on the French-speaking public alone. In the UK case the Medion argument, that CREATIONS kept an independent distinctive role inside COCA-COLA CREATIONS, failed because FRUIT CREATIONS was found to be a unitary phrase, so there was nothing independent to carry over. And the without prejudice save as to costs offer in the UK case deferred the costs ruling entirely, with the appeal period running from that later decision, which is worth knowing before you make or refuse one.

I am not a solicitor and this is not legal advice. My company finds filings that conflict with a name and states the date by which something can be done. Whether to do it is a question for an attorney, and neither of these decisions predicts another.

Not legal advice. Not privileged. TMGuard is not a law firm.

Sources: UK IPO, BL O/0126/26, Robinsons Soft Drinks Limited v The Coca-Cola Company, 17 February 2026. EUIPO Fourth Board of Appeal, R 1897/2025-4, Beast Holdings, LLC v Sinan Hadzija, 29 May 2026, confirming Opposition Division decision B 3 208 589 of 27 August 2025. Britvic, About us, britvic.com. Robinsons, robinsonssquash.co.uk. Beastie Burgers, beastie.be.