If you’re English or Icelandic this’ll mean something to you. If you’re not you’ll have to read on to get the gist of this one.
U.K. supermarket no longer legally trumps a literal country
Iceland Foods, which operates Iceland supermarkets in the U.K., no longer holds the EU trademark on the word “Iceland,” which is, of course, a sovereign country. The EU Intellectual Property Organisation granted the food company said trademark back in 2014, but that trademark is now invalidated after the supermarket tried to stop the country from mentioning itself in a slogan, prompting the country to sue. Iceland’s foreign minister Guðlaugur Þór Þórðarson said: “…[I]t defies common sense that a foreign company can stake a claim to the name of a sovereign nation as was done.” Iceland, which memorably defeated England in football’s 2016 European Championships, has now claimed another victory; this one is rather less surprising, but Iceland Foods is able to appeal the ruling within the next two months. [Boing Boing]
