THE white rose at the heart of a High Court battle between two North Yorkshire brewers has been synonymous with Sam Smith's for decades, the court heard today.

The Tadcaster firm is locked in dispute with Cropton Brewery, from near Pickering, over the use of the rose on beer bottles.

Phil Lee, of Cropton, says the rose is the symbol of Yorkshire and there is no reason why he should not be able to use it.

But Sam Smith’s claim his use of the symbol on bottles of Yorkshire Warrior ale, launched to raise money for wounded soldiers, is an infringement of their trademark.

Clive Auton, a former manager at Sam Smith's, which operates 300 pubs nationwide, today told Mr Justice Arnold that the idea originated in the 1960s.

Fearing they would be left behind, the brewery enlisted the services of a Leeds-based agency to come up with a logo.

Mr Auton said: “At that time, breweries around us – Tetley's, John Smith's, Bass – they all had emblems.

"Sam Smith's didn't really have a distinctive trademark at that time and the brief to the advertising agency was to produce an emblem for the company that would be synonymous with Sam Smith's.

"That was when they produced the white rose emblem.

"We were Yorkshire's oldest brewery and the agency thought the stylised rose was appropriate and would eventually become synonymous with Sam Smith's."

Mr Auton said the rose was originally only for the brewer's Sovereign bitter, but the emblem was later expanded across Sam Smith's range.

Cropton's barrister, Mark Engelman, argued that the white rose was a symbol of the county and the Yorkshire Regiment, and has been used in numerous other ways by other companies and organisations.

He suggested to Mr Auton that the rose was used as an emblem simply to remind customers where it came from.

Earlier, the court was told by Sam Smith's barrister, Denise McFarland, that the emblem on the Warrior bottles was "confusingly similar" to Smith's logo.

The hearing is expected to continue all week.