from the who’s-the-moron-in-a-hurry-here dept
The ten year war over Iceland is over and Iceland has come out the victor.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, be prepared to listen to a whole bunch of stupid. In 2016, we wrote about Iceland Foods, a UK grocer, which had somehow convinced the EU to give it a trademark for “Iceland” and which then went about bullying other companies and opposing trademarks for any that included the name of that country. One of the entities that Iceland Foods found itself in a trademark opposition with was Iceland, as in the country, when it attempted to trademark “Inspired by Iceland.” The Icelandic government didn’t take too kindly to that appropriation of its own name and petitioned to cancel the Iceland Foods trademark, which is exactly what happened. Rather than put an end to this absurdity, Iceland Foods appealed that decision, lost, then appealed it again, lost again, appealed a third time, only to lose there as well.
From there, Iceland Foods had but one final option for appealing all of these perfectly sane rulings, which would be to take this before the Court of Justice of the EU. And, while that would obviously be crazy, everything I’d seen to date led me to believe the grocer would do just that.
But sanity seems to finally be on the menu, I guess. Iceland Foods has publicly announced that it is ending the fight and surrendering.
Executive chairman Richard Walker revealed the supermarket would drop the legal dispute, which centres on the right to use the phrase Iceland in the EU, following its third legal loss in July 2025.
Iceland had one fourth and final route of appeal, via the Court of Justice of the European Union, but Walker told the Financial Times it would instead use the “couple of hundred grand” it would save in legal fees to give a “rapprochement discount” to Icelandic shoppers.
Yeah, that’s how this should have been approached from the jump, folks. And this actually goes back even further, where this broad, geographic trademark by a private entity consisting of the name of a sovereign nation never should have been granted a trademark to begin with.
But that’s all over now. Iceland Foods’ trademark is invalidated. Iceland once more is free from being bullied over its own name, as would be other companies from the island nation. Iceland Foods can keep on operating as it always has, sans the ability to bully others with this ridiculous mark. Walker himself said as much, in a very frustrating manner.
“We lost for a third time. We’re going to throw in the towel,” Walker told the FT. “It’s actually fine — we don’t have to change our name.”
Exactly. You never had to. That was never in question. The only question is whether you got to keep your laughable trademark and bully others over it.
Instead, the grocer wasted everyone’s time, and who knows how much of its own money, trying to wage this silly war.
Filed Under: cjeu, iceland, iceland iceland iceland, trademark, uk
Companies: iceland foods
