Easygroup’s boss has slammed a UK court ruling that said a German cosmetics brand did not infringe on the group’s trademark rights over the use of the word “easy”.
Easygroup filed a lawsuit against German-based Beauty Perfectionists, Austrian-based Beauty International Austria and its director Julie Khammo, over the use of ‘easy’ in its German and Austrian website, Easycosmetic.
While the court ruled that there was potential links between the orange/black sign of easycosmectic.de and the Easyjet logo, it said it can only rely on the existence of these links with regards to UK consumers, not German or Austrian ones.
Stelios Haji-Ioannou, Easygroup’s boss, said was “disappointed” with the decision, and added that the judge “made various errors of law”.
He said Easygroup will seek permission to appeal the decision.
He said there is now a growing trend in the UK for trademark cases to be decided by general Chancery judges at first instance “as opposed to trademark specialist judges”.
He highlighted: “This new trend has resulted in more first instance decisions issued which are not in favour of trademark owners. In plain English some of the general chancery judges want to allow more competition.”
Haji-Ioannou noted that such decisions are being appealed and ultimately overturned in the Court of Appeal, adding that the higher court “has also expressed its ‘surprise’ at some of these first instance decisions”.
While this is ongoing, the group has an ongoing separate court case against these defendants in Germany.
Easygroup also has a number of trademark lawsuits ongoing at the English High Court, as the group is active in the litigation space against companies of all sizes that it believes is infringing on its trademark.
The group is currently at trial with a charity tech platform Easyfundraising after it sued it for the use of ‘easy’ in its name.