Daring to put the name of a company or even a pop group with ‘easy’ could land you legally as the founder of British airline easyJet relentlessly tackles alleged trademark infringements.
Greek Cypriot tycoon Stelios Hatzi-Ioannou, whose easyGroup still has links to the carrier, has aimed to protect the ‘easy’ brand by threatening legal action against anyone seen to be profiting from the name.
A formal complaint made by the man known simply as Stelios recently forced British indie pop group Easy Life, which also graced posters with an aircraft resembling an easyJet plane, to change its name. Choose Hard Life.
“Easy come, easy go”
“The problem with small brand thieves if left unchecked is that they become profitable and grow,” an easyGroup spokesman told AFP in reference to several ongoing lawsuits.
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“Most of these cases never come to court as the brand thieves realize they are wrong and make changes to easyGroup’s satisfaction,” he added.
Hard Life still gives a nod to its past, with the band’s account on X bearing the title message “easy come, easy go”.
Ahead of the release of a new song in June, he wrote on the social platform: “Sure to say the last nine months have not been easy.”
EasyGroup and Stelios, who lives in Monaco, insist their actions are in the best interests of the consumer, to avoid confusion and preserve the company’s image.
The spokesman added that “most of easyGroup’s profits” go to the Stelios Charity.
The easyGroup model sees it receive royalties from licensing its brand to third parties. It receives, for example, 0.25 percent of easyJet’s revenue, while the Hatzi-Ioannou family still owns 15 percent of the carrier.
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There are around 1,200 official ‘easy’ brands, from gambling business easyBet to easyGym, easyHotel and dating site easyWoo — many of which feature the same font and orange/white color scheme.
“David and Goliath”
Unofficial “easy” companies contacted by AFP cited colossal legal fees as a reason for backing down and changing their names when pursued by easyGroup.
“As a small business it was incredibly difficult to keep up financially with the lawyer’s fees, so for me I’m happy to put it behind me,” said Jozsef Spekker, owner of Stoke Jetwash.
The street cleaning business was known as Easy Jetwash until August.
The new name is named after the town where his small business is based in central England.
An expert in intellectual property law at the London School of Economics, Luke McDonagh, described such cases as “David and Goliath battles”.
“Some people call this trademark bullying, where essentially Goliath is courting a David, a small company that really doesn’t have the resources and can’t fight back,” he told AFP.
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“It’s not just easyGroup, it would be a mistake to single them out, a lot of big companies are doing this,” he added, citing Apple, L’Oreal and Sky TV as prime examples.
McDonagh believes easyGroup, whose brand extends to cruise company easyBoat and home products company easyCleaning, “has gone too far in taking on 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 were a completely made-up word, but ‘easy’ is such a common word in the English language that it should be and other companies can to use it in a reasonable way”.
“War of Attrition”
EasyGroup has enjoyed “many legal (trademark) victories over the years,” the spokesman said, but there have been setbacks, including one this month.
London’s High Court has ruled in favor of online platform easyfundraising, which hopes to recover around 1.0 million pounds ($1.3 million) in legal fees, despite an appeal pending against the company.
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“It’s like a war of attrition and they just hope that eventually the companies give in because it’s too long, it’s too much hassle, it’s too expensive,” easyfundraising chief executive James Moir told AFP.
Source: AFP