A chicken shop owner in Northern England has lost a lengthy legal dispute with Elon Musk‘s Tesla.
Amanj Ali’s takeaway in Bury, Greater Manchester, called Tesla Chicken & Pizza, was at the center of a trademark dispute with the EV company.
Last November, Ali was ordered to pay £4,000, or $5,053, to Tesla after the UK’s Intellectual Property Office eventually sided with the auto giant.
Ali had registered the trademark for the takeaway in May 2022, citing the inventor Nikola Tesla as his inspiration for the name, the BBC reported.
When asked about the unusual inspiration, he told the outlet: “He was a kind of intelligent guy… in my young age, I was… reading about him, looking at his pictures.”
While Tesla did not originally object to the trademark, Ali was notified in November 2021 that the auto company had requested international protection for trademarks in the UK food and drink category, documents released by the IPO showed.
Ali opposed the request, fearing the company would try to invalidate his trademark for the takeaway. Almost a year later, Tesla did just that, claiming Ali’s trademark would take unfair advantage of the EV company’s established reputation.
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https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-chicken-shop-trademark-elon-musk-2024-2
