(TDB) - Rush Rich winery, accused by Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) of copycatting its flagship wine brand Penfolds, has fired back against the Australian wine giant with a cross claim in a federal court.

“We reject, in the strongest terms, Treasury Wine Estate’s assertion that we have infringed any trademark held by Treasury Wine Estates and will contest this vigorously in the Federal Court,” Rush Rich Winery’s owner Vincent Zhao, told the Adelaide Advertiser.

The comments were made by the winery after it filed a cross claim at a federal court against TWE, a few months after TWE sued Rush Rich for infringing its trademark rights of Penfolds and its Chinese translated name Ben Fu (奔富), meaning ‘chasing prosperity’ in English, which can also be literally reverse translated from Chinese to English as ‘Rush Wealth’ or ‘Rush Rich’.