This article was written by Tracey Cooper for The
Register.
It has been reproduced with permission.
In March, easyGroup, parent of easyJet, easyMobile, easyCruise
and many other "easy" brands,
won a trademark for easy.com. But ISP Easynet, the internet
service provider owned by bskyb, appealed this decision and took
the case to the High Court in London.
Last Friday, the court again ruled that the easy.com trademark
is distinctive, giving more weight to the already bulging group of
companies.
Easynet was ordered to pay both sides' costs.
easyGroup says the judgement will award it more "legal
rights...to defend the use of the 'easy' brand across the 15
businesses that are trading so far".
easyGroup managing director Stelios Haji-Ioannou has campaigned
against othere "easy" domain name owners for over six years,
accusing them of "passing off" on its name - even though EasyGroup
was informed by the World Intellectual Property Organisation in
2000 that it was not entitled to domain names with the word "easy".
The English High Court also ruled against EasyGroup, saying the
word "easy" was too common in the English language.
But in spite of some setbacks
and criticism of being a "rich bully", Sir Stelios' crusade
seems to be at full throttle.
Last week he advertised
for a managing director to run easyGroup IP, part of whose
mandate is to "protect the 'easy' brand by companies who aim to
mislead the public by inferring [sic] that they are members of
easyGroup".
easyGroup is currently selling franchises and licensing its
brand. The easy giant says it "will defend its brand and
intellectual property on behalf of licensees and franchisees as
well as on behalf of the millions of consumers who trust their
money to easyGroup businesses around the world".
"If there is any chance that consumers could be confused into
believing that a company is part of the easyGroup when in fact it
is not, then the easyGroup is duty bound to protect its brand and
those consumers."
We can breathe a sigh of relief then.
