Daring to prefix an organization or perhaps a pop group’s identify with “easy” might land you in authorized sizzling water, because the founding father of British airline easyJet relentlessly tackles alleged trademark breaches.
Greek-Cypriot tycoon Stelios Haji-Ioannou, whose easyGroup nonetheless has hyperlinks with the service, has got down to shield the “easy” model by threatening court docket motion in opposition to anybody deemed to be making the most of the identify.
A proper grievance made by the person merely often called Stelios just lately pressured British indie pop band Straightforward Life, which additionally adorned posters with an plane displaying a likeness to an easyJet airplane, into altering its identify. It selected Arduous Life.
EasyGroup owns the licenses to a number of entities with the “easy” identify. The pop band took to social media when EasyJet was suing it, saying it didn’t have the funds to defend itself in what could possibly be a prolonged authorized row.
To make sure, the airline group solely filed its trademark utility for the “Easylife” identify in 2020—a number of years after the band was based. Nonetheless, easyGroup has sought to guard the “easy” prefix because it owns many companies with related names akin to easyCinema and easyBooking.
‘Easy come, easy go’
“The problem with small brand thieves if they are left unchecked is that they become profitable and they grow,” an easyGroup spokesman advised AFP in relation to quite a few ongoing lawsuits.
“Most of these cases never come to open court as the brand thieves realise that they are in the wrong and make changes to the satisfaction of easyGroup,” he added.
Arduous Life nonetheless provides a nod to its previous, with the band’s account on X carrying the title message “easy come, easy go”.
Forward of releasing a brand new tune in June it wrote on the social platform: “Safe to say the last nine months haven’t been easy.”
EasyGroup and Stelios, who lives in Monaco, insist that their actions are within the curiosity of the patron, to keep away from confusion and protect the corporate’s picture.
The spokesman added that “most of easyGroup’s profits” go into the Stelios Philanthropic Basis.
The easyGroup mannequin sees it obtain royalties from licensing its model to 3rd events. It receives, for instance, 0.25 % of easyJet’s income, whereas the Haji-Ioannou household nonetheless owns 15 % of the service.
Round 1,200 official “easy” manufacturers exist, from playing enterprise easyBet to easyGym, easyHotel and courting web site easyWoo—lots of which exhibit the identical typeface and orange/white color scheme.
‘David and Goliath’
Unofficial “easy” firms contacted by AFP cited colossal authorized charges as the explanation for backing down and altering their names when pursued by easyGroup.
“As a small business it was incredibly hard to keep up financially with solicitor fees so for me I am happy to leave this behind me,” stated Jozsef Spekker, proprietor of Stoke Jetwash.
The driveway-cleaning enterprise was often called Straightforward Jetwash till August.
The brand new identify takes the identify of town the place his small enterprise relies in central England.
An mental property legislation specialist on the London Faculty of Economics, Luke McDonagh, described such circumstances as “David and Goliath battles”.
“Some people call this trademark bullying, where essentially Goliath takes a case against a David, a small company that really has no resources and cannot fight back,” he advised AFP.
“It’s not just easyGroup, it would be wrong to single them out, a lot of big companies do this,” he added, citing Apple, L’Oreal and tv broadcaster Sky as prime examples.
McDonagh believes easyGroup, whose branding extends to cruise firm easyBoat and household-products agency easyCleaning, “has been going too far in taking so many cases against these small entities”.
“The purpose of trademark law is not to give an unlimited monopoly on a word. It might be different if it was an entirely made-up word, but ‘easy’ is such a common word in the English language that other companies need to be able to use it in a reasonable way.”
EasyGroup has loved “many legal (trademark) victories over the years”, the spokesman stated.
Even when it could not at all times appear to be a combat between equals, Stelios has misplaced a couple of challenges over the model’s identify. In 2018, as an example, the group misplaced a case in opposition to automotive vendor Arnold Clark over the identify of its fee system, Straightforward Pay.
Earlier this month, Easyfundraising, a virtually 20-year-old Staffordshire-based firm, received a authorized battle in opposition to EasyGroup alongside related traces.
The Excessive Courtroom in London dominated in favour of on-line platform easyfundraising, which is hoping to get well round £1.0 million ($1.3 million) in authorized charges, regardless of an enchantment hanging over the corporate.
“It is telling that EasyGroup were not able to produce a single piece of evidence showing any customer confusion has ever existed,” Easyfundraising’s CEO James Moir advised the BBC. Stelios, then again, stated he would enchantment the choice as he was “disappointed” by it.
“It’s like a war of attrition, and they just hope that ultimately companies give in, because it’s too long, it’s too much hassle, it’s too expensive,” Moir advised AFP.
