Background
The Scotts Company, maker of the iconic Miracle-Gro brand of lawn and garden products, sued Procter & Gamble over P&G’s new Spruce line of weed killers. Scotts alleged that Spruce’s packaging—featuring a green-and-yellow color scheme—infringed Miracle-Gro’s trade dress and was likely to confuse consumers into thinking the products were associated with or endorsed by Scotts.
In June 2025, the district court denied Scotts’ motion for a preliminary injunction. Judge Douglas Cole acknowledged that Miracle-Gro’s trade dress had acquired some distinctiveness given the brand’s billions of dollars in sales over several decades, but concluded that Scotts was unlikely to succeed on the merits because it could not establish a likelihood of confusion between the two products’ packaging. Scotts appealed to the Sixth Circuit.
The Court’s Holding
The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The panel agreed with the district court that Scotts failed to demonstrate the kind of trade dress distinctiveness and likelihood of confusion needed to support injunctive relief.
Crucially, the court noted that the green-and-yellow color combination Scotts claimed as its trade dress is not unique to Miracle-Gro—several other competitors in the lawn care market sell products with similar green and yellow packaging. This widespread use undercut Scotts’ argument that consumers would associate the color scheme exclusively with Miracle-Gro.
The court also found that Miracle-Gro and Spruce are not directly competing products in the eyes of consumers, further weakening the likelihood-of-confusion analysis. While both are sold in the lawn care aisle, the products serve different functions and are marketed under clearly different brand names.
Key Takeaways
- Color-based trade dress is hard to protect in crowded markets. When multiple competitors use similar color schemes, no single brand can claim exclusive rights to that color combination, even with decades of use and billions in sales.
- Brand name differences matter. Courts will consider whether the products’ different brand names (“Miracle-Gro” vs. “Spruce”) mitigate any confusion that might arise from similar packaging colors or layouts.
- Preliminary injunction standard remains high. To win a preliminary injunction in a trade dress case, the plaintiff must show not just some distinctiveness, but a likelihood of success on the full confusion analysis—including the strength of the mark, proximity of products, and evidence of actual confusion.
Why It Matters
For consumer products companies, this case confirms that even iconic brands with extensive market presence cannot monopolize common color combinations through trade dress law. The ruling is particularly relevant in the lawn care and household products sectors, where green-and-yellow packaging is a virtual industry standard. Companies launching competing products can take some comfort that using common industry color palettes will not automatically trigger trade dress liability—but should still differentiate their branding sufficiently to avoid the kind of lawsuit Scotts brought here.