Wall St. Journal Law Blog - Time to brush up on your trademark law. We turn now to the dog-eat-dog world of toothpaste packaging, where a word we’ve never heard of is at the center of a heated dispute between the Colgate-Palmolive Company and GlaxoSmithKline. The loaded word? Nurdle, or, for the uninitiated, “a small amount of toothpaste akin to what consumers would use brushing their teeth.” Colgate-Palmolive filed a suit in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday in defense of its right to use a nurdle on its packaging along with the phrase, Triple Action, which, as everybody knows, refers to “Cavity protection,” “Whiter teeth,” and “Fresh breath.” Click here for the complaint.

“If any oral care product manufacturer were to be prohibited from using nurdle images on product packaging, that manufacturer would be at a competitive disadvantage,” warns Colgate in court papers.

The filing levels some heavy accusations at GlaxoSmithKline, which makes the toothpaste AquaFresh. It seeks to have a court declare that Colgate is not infringing on AquaFresh’s design, which incorporates both the all-important nurdle and the similar phrase, “Triple Protection.” Colgate is claiming that Glaxo is threatening litigation for no other reason than ”to further its anti-competitive motivations” and “hinder fair competition.”

Glaxo did not immediately return a call and an e-mail from Reuters seeking comment.

Link to Story: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/07/29/colgate-glaxosmithkline-set-to-battle-over-toothpaste-nurdle/?blog_id=14&post_id=31793