Trade marks are easy like a Sunday morning, although less so if you’re the EasyGroup – the holding company which owns EasyJet and many other trademarks.
It is fair to say that Stelios (who apparently remains as chairman of EasyGroup) and his merry men are no strangers to intellectual property disputes. A quick search shows over 20 high court cases where they are a party – almost all appear to be trade mark disputes against someone trying to use the EASY party of their trademark.
Throughout those cases, EasyGroup (EasyJet etc) have almost had a monopoly on the word EASY, even though they do not have a registered trade mark for that word. This week’s case referred to EasyJet, EasyCar, EasyHotel, EasyInternetCafe, EasyEverything, EasyValue, EasyMoney).
In a case decided this week (2nd August 2021) in the High Court, the likelihood of that dominance continuing has dropped considerably in my view.
The Court was looking at Easylife’s trademarks which included “easylife group, ‘easylifegroup.com’, ‘easyclean’, ‘easy green’ and ‘easycare’. It’s logo looked like this:
This was a long running case, with huge amounts of paperwork – the index alone ran to 198 pages and there were some 59,000 documents. Obviously, a lot was riding on it for both parties.
The High Court ruled that trade mark registrations for easyLand and easy4men owned by easyGroup should be revoked for non-use, and the easyGroup registered trade mark must carry a specification that aligned with its use. Further, the easyJet trade mark must not to be registered in relation to “tourist office services”. The court also dismissed claims that various signs including the text easylife, easyclean, easy green and easycare infringed the trade marks and in passing-off.
The intended use of the goods sold by the defendant was domestic in nature (the goods included clothing, cleaning products, animal repellants and lawn dye) while the service it provided was a shopping forum (either via a brochure or website) where goods were brought together in one place. Accordingly, those goods and services were dissimilar to the services registered under the easyJet mark.
The following factors negated average consumer confusion:
- The second word of the signs complained of was different to those in the wider easy-prefixed family of marks and easyGroup.
- Except for easy4men, the easyGroup mark (including those in the easyGroup family) used one word after “easy”.
- That second word began in uppercase.
- The get-up was different to the marks complained of.
- The low distinctiveness of the word “easy”.
- Incidences of actual confusion were insignificant.
Therefore, there was no likelihood of confusion.
It was also said that the average consumer would not make a link between the signs complained of and the easyGroup or easyJet marks. EasyJet was a passenger airline, while easylife was a home products retailer, and easyGroup was not consumer-facing.
While Steven Mather Solicitor was not involved in this case, if your business is involved in any kind of trade mark dispute or intellectual property claim, whether at the IPO Tribunal or High Court, get in touch for expert trademark litigation advice.