The Icelandic government have announced plans to take legal action against the frozen supermarket Iceland Foods’ over the use of its name.
The country of Iceland is challenging the supermarket’s ownership of the registration for the word ‘Iceland’, which government officials have said prevents the state’s own company’s from promoting their own goods and services throughout the rest of Europe.
The ministry said Iceland had tried several times to negotiate in the hope of reaching a fair solution and avoiding legal action but its efforts had been met with “unrealistic and unacceptable demands by the supermarket chain leaving Iceland with no choice but to proceed with a legal resolution to the situation.
Iceland Foods’, which owns more than 800 stores across the UK, has “aggressively pursued and won multiple cases against Icelandic companies which use ‘Iceland’ in their representation or as part of their trademark, even in cases when the products and services do not compete,” Iceland’s ministry for foreign affairs said.
“The Icelandic government’s legal challenge at the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EU-IPO) seeks to invalidate this exclusive registration on the basis that the term ‘Iceland’ is exceptionally broad and ambiguous in definition, often rendering the country’s firms unable to describe their products as Icelandic,” the statement added.
The company have responded by saying that they “very much regret that the government of Iceland has apparently decided to take legal action over the use of the name Iceland. We have been trading successfully for 46 years under the name Iceland and do not believe that any serious confusion or conflict has ever arisen in the public mind, or is likely to do so.”
“We hope that the government will contact us directly so that we may address their concerns,” the company said.
The Icelandic government did once did have a close relationship. Icelandic retail conglomerate Baugur Group had a large stake in Iceland Foods’ until Baugur’s collapse during the 2008 global financial crisis that devastated Iceland’s economy.