Which orange and cola mixture can be called “Spezi”? A court must answer this question today. Two breweries from Augsburg and Munich are arguing before the Munich I District Court about the name for the brownish fizzy drink. The Munich-based company Paulaner wants to have the court determine that it can continue to call its soda mix “Spezi” in the future. The Augsburg Riegele brewery, which claims to have invented the name, doubts that. It’s about a lot of money: The amount in dispute is ten million euros.
“It is undisputed that Riegele invented the Spezi,” said Sebastian Priller-Riegele, who runs the Riegele brewery with his father, after the court hearing in the summer. As early as the mid-1950s, medium-sized companies had registered the “Spezi” trademark. The associated slogan at the time: “A friend has to be there.”
1974 agreement
The brewery is now demanding money from the large Paulaner brewery if they want to continue selling their “Spezi” under the name. Paulaner has filed a lawsuit against this claim.
The situation is complicated not only by various legal successors and transfers at Paulaner, but also by an agreement from 1974 between Riegele and what was then Paulaner Salvator Thomas-Bräu-AG. There is no consensus as to what this is about. Riegele speaks of a license agreement that has now been terminated, combined with an offer for a new contract.
Paulaner, on the other hand, does not consider such a license to be necessary. It was only agreed in 1974 to differentiate between the two Spezi drinks and to let them exist side by side. There was no talk of a license agreement. At the oral hearing in June, the parties to the dispute had signaled their willingness to talk to each other and possibly find an out-of-court settlement. Because these plans failed, the court must now decide on the future of the “Spezi”.