EasyGroup, the company behind one of Europe’s leading budget airlines is suing Netflix over the comedy series “Easy” – claiming that use of the name breaches the company’s European trademarks. Sir Stelios, the founder of the company, has claimed that Netflix have sought to “piggyback” off his easyGroup business and has indicated that the easyGroup takes unauthorised use of trademarks very seriously.
Sir Stelios fired a warning shot to Netflix, stating that the easyGroup own the European trademark in the word easy and another thousand trademarks with easy as a prefix and “we [easyGroup] can’t allow people to use it now as a brand name, especially when they are doing it mostly with our colours and font”. Netflix responded to the lawsuit with the following statement: “Viewers can tell the difference between a show they watch and a plane they fly in,”
This of course is not the first time easyGroup have taken legal action against “brand thieves” and the company even has a section on their website warning that they take all infringement of trademark seriously and have even gone as far as preparing press releases setting out their various wins in the European Court of Justice and the High Court here in England & Wales.
These two giants of their respective worlds will no doubt be locked in litigation for the foreseeable future and we await the High Court’s judgment on the dispute.
