A Texas court has set a preliminary trial date this summer for Coca-Cola’s lawsuit against PepsiCo over juice packaging. Coca-Cola is charging that the carafes for Trop50 juice from PepsiCo’s Tropicana unit look too much like those for Coke’s Simply juice line. The 1.75-liter carafes both feature broad, flat green closures and narrow necks, although the Simply carafe has square shoulders and the Trop50 one is completely rounded. The Simply line debuted in 2001 and now has more than $1 billion in annual sales. Trop50 was introduced in 2009 and underwent a package redesign last summer. Houston-area judge Sim Lake has set a date for the trade-dress infringement trial of June 13.
