You may not be aware of the battle that is brewing over nurdles. Nurdle? What's a nurdle, you say? It's the wave-like glob of toothpaste applied on a toothbrush and it's the center of a fight between two consumer product giants Colgate-Palmolive and GlaxoSmithKline"
Colgate sued Glaxo, which owns the Aquafresh brand, seeking a court order that its packaging for Colgate toothpaste does not infringe trademarks held by Glaxo, which had filed a trademark application for the nurdle design.
Glaxo loves the word so much that it even created Nurdle World, the home of Milky, Lilly and Billy (pictured above). To wit: “Nurdle World helps children (and parents) understand more about healthy gums, strong teeth and fresh breath, while having fun,” the company said on the web site.
Ben Klayman of Reuters' Shop Talk blog has more: http://blogs.reuters.com/shop-talk/2010/07/29/whats-a-nurdle-well-colgate-and-glaxo-are-sparring-over-the-word/
http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-nur1.htm