Innovationpartners

On the Danish island Ærø lives a little shopkeeper Inge Dahl. Her shop produces salt, tea and soap under the brand “Ærø Specialiteter” (Specialties from Ærø). Her brand is of course registered as a trademark. 

 

One morning Nestle´s trademark attorney almost choked on his morning coffee (or so I think) because he did a trademark search and came up with the Ærø brand which when translated to English sounds like aero which is a registered trademark by Nestle. So he contacted Nestle Denmark who contacted Inge Dahl to square things off. So the parties now agree that Ærø Specialiteter will not include chocolate. No big fuzz. 

I´m glad that Nestle chose the sensible way and didn´t move to remove Inge Dahls trademark. Co-existence in this case is pretty easy.

A very cool thing is actually that since the newspaper stories around this case are using words like “lawsuit” and “threats”, Nestle has chosen to comment the case on their website. Way to go in communication

Original story on the Politiken website.