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UK supermarket chain Iceland has abandoned its decade-long trademark battle with Iceland and instead promised a “rapprochement discount” for shoppers in the country
[The Big Food Group] also owns Individual Restaurants, whose brands include Piccolino and Restaurant Bar & Grill.
These guys really do love their generic brand names, huh? I’m genuinely amazed that “Restaurant Bar & Grill” is an actual brand - I’ve never seen one, and predictably failed to get any useful search results, although it’s on the company page, so I presume it’s genuine!
Yeah, looks like there are 4 in the UK: Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Chester.
I really dislike companies trying to control normal language (like “App Store”), if they try to register generic language, then they should lose the right to register a trade mark for a period.
To my knowledge Apple did indeed invent the term “App Store”. We forget how influential they were in the early days of smartphones, but they are the ones who popularized the term “app”. I didn’t hear anyone calling applications that name until the iPhone got them.
You've got me reminiscing on the tech of years gone by now - I did a little bit of digging to make sure the cobwebs in my memory from back then weren't playing tricks on me, and it's been a fun little blast from the past!
"App Store" was definitely popularised by Apple, the average person wasn't really talking about smartphones at all before then, but you could've made a fairly reasonable argument for it already being a generic term among early adopters even at the time - the word "app" for mobile applications wasn't too unusual by the time the iPhone came out, and there were definitely app-store-like services long before then even if they used different branding.
AppForge, a mobile app development company with their own download portal, had already lived, died, and been bought out by Oracle before the iPhone was even announced in late 2007. The Sony Ericsson P800/P900 had a download client that was branded as the "Application Shop Client" way back in 2003 (at least in the UK - I wouldn't be surprised if that was "store" in the US, but the search term is so flooded that I couldn't find anything definite on that). I found a few more general uses of the word app predating the iPhone on that site too, but nothing as interesting as those first two.
[Edit] Side note that I forgot to mention - that last link is one of the most accurate predictions I’ve seen for a 20 year horizon in any context! I’m genuinely impressed how close he got it, from terminology to functionality to user needs to the impact on other device markets.
It feels like one should be able to trademark, say, "Ice Land" (since it's not a geographic name that way) for the name of a grocery store but not try to have such a broad trademark that "Iceland" can't sell Iceland branded merch?
In July last year, the EU general court upheld a ruling cancelling the grocer’s EU trademark registration for the word Iceland. The court reaffirmed that geographical names must remain available for public use.
That seems open and shut though. Why did this reach ten years and multiple appeals?
Could well be Brexit, could also partly be that IP law cases are notoriously fiddly at the best of times and they can really drag when two decently well funded parties are involved.
It's quite an interesting one from the point of view of Iceland (company), because they'd been using the brand for 45 years before Iceland (country) filed the suit - so legally it's pretty much open and shut, but practically speaking I can see why they were reluctant to let it drop. It's also one of those companies that actually did originally grow from one guy's shop back in the 70s, so it's a bit more understandable to me that they weren't thinking about it up front.
That's a complicated legal question that I'm not fully sure of the answer, but from what I know:
Czech Republic is still out because it's still a official name of Czechia, just not the preferred name anymore.
A historical name like Yugoslavia would probably be iffy because it's still generally a publicly known place but also who's going to dispute on Yugoslavia's behalf?
Greg | a day ago
These guys really do love their generic brand names, huh? I’m genuinely amazed that “Restaurant Bar & Grill” is an actual brand - I’ve never seen one, and predictably failed to get any useful search results, although it’s on the company page, so I presume it’s genuine!
Chiasmic | 11 hours ago
Yeah, looks like there are 4 in the UK: Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Chester.
I really dislike companies trying to control normal language (like “App Store”), if they try to register generic language, then they should lose the right to register a trade mark for a period.
Akir | 7 hours ago
To my knowledge Apple did indeed invent the term “App Store”. We forget how influential they were in the early days of smartphones, but they are the ones who popularized the term “app”. I didn’t hear anyone calling applications that name until the iPhone got them.
Greg | 6 hours ago
You've got me reminiscing on the tech of years gone by now - I did a little bit of digging to make sure the cobwebs in my memory from back then weren't playing tricks on me, and it's been a fun little blast from the past!
"App Store" was definitely popularised by Apple, the average person wasn't really talking about smartphones at all before then, but you could've made a fairly reasonable argument for it already being a generic term among early adopters even at the time - the word "app" for mobile applications wasn't too unusual by the time the iPhone came out, and there were definitely app-store-like services long before then even if they used different branding.
AppForge, a mobile app development company with their own download portal, had already lived, died, and been bought out by Oracle before the iPhone was even announced in late 2007. The Sony Ericsson P800/P900 had a download client that was branded as the "Application Shop Client" way back in 2003 (at least in the UK - I wouldn't be surprised if that was "store" in the US, but the search term is so flooded that I couldn't find anything definite on that). I found a few more general uses of the word app predating the iPhone on that site too, but nothing as interesting as those first two.
[Edit] Side note that I forgot to mention - that last link is one of the most accurate predictions I’ve seen for a 20 year horizon in any context! I’m genuinely impressed how close he got it, from terminology to functionality to user needs to the impact on other device markets.
DefinitelyNotAFae | a day ago
It feels like one should be able to trademark, say, "Ice Land" (since it's not a geographic name that way) for the name of a grocery store but not try to have such a broad trademark that "Iceland" can't sell Iceland branded merch?
Aerrol | a day ago
The key bit is this:
That seems open and shut though. Why did this reach ten years and multiple appeals?
DefinitelyNotAFae | a day ago
No I understand the outcome more like, they could have used a slight variation and/or gone for a less broad trademark or something.
But yeah I'm not sure why it took that long. Brexit maybe?
Greg | a day ago
Could well be Brexit, could also partly be that IP law cases are notoriously fiddly at the best of times and they can really drag when two decently well funded parties are involved.
It's quite an interesting one from the point of view of Iceland (company), because they'd been using the brand for 45 years before Iceland (country) filed the suit - so legally it's pretty much open and shut, but practically speaking I can see why they were reluctant to let it drop. It's also one of those companies that actually did originally grow from one guy's shop back in the 70s, so it's a bit more understandable to me that they weren't thinking about it up front.
DefinitelyNotAFae | a day ago
Yeah they can definitely linger just was thinking it being pretty clear cut makes it odder. But, not an international IP lawyer, so what do I know!
Fiachra | 3 hours ago
Does that refer to current geographical names? Could they rename to Yugoslavia or Czech Republic as a publicity stunt and come out shining?
Aerrol | 2 hours ago
That's a complicated legal question that I'm not fully sure of the answer, but from what I know:
I love the angle though lmao.
Fiachra | 32 minutes ago
I actually found a proof of concept! Dacia the car manufacturer vs Dacia the famous ancient kingdom, (which it's directly named after).
Fiachra | 4 hours ago
Should have used some made up spelling like "Aïslaand" or something
DefinitelyNotAFae | 3 hours ago
It would certainly have saved them now, but I do appreciate the simplicity of some guy selling frozen food from their brand new store... Iceland.
stu2b50 | 2 hours ago
I mean it’s a pun - they only sell frozen goods. Hence ice land.
Fiachra | 31 minutes ago
Tough crowd