Iceland supermarket hits back at Iceland government
05 Dec 2016
The supermarket Iceland claimed that the Icelandic government is "not willing to hold any serious discussion" to reach agreement with over its use of the name Iceland.
Iceland had launched legal action against the supermarket chain, saying it prevented the nation's firms from describing their products as Icelandic.
Iceland Foods owned the European trademark for the use of the name Iceland and though the firm sent a delegation to the capital Reykjavik on Friday no agreement was reached.
"[The talks] got nowhere because it rapidly became clear that the Icelandic authorities have no interest in reaching a compromise," said founder and chief executive Malcolm Walker.
"We have no real idea why this has suddenly become such a major problem for Iceland (the country).
"Iceland Foods had Icelandic majority shareholders and Icelandic representatives on its board for seven years to 2012. At no point in all those years did any representative of Iceland (the country) raise the slightest concern about our company's branding," he said.
The foreign ministry of Iceland said on Friday that the company continued to exercise exclusive control of the word Iceland and that the government would therefore pursue legal action to invalidate the company's trademark (See: Government of Iceland takes UK's Iceland Foods to court over use of 'Iceland'). "The registration of a country name that enjoys highly positive national branding to a private company defies logic and is untenable," the ministry said.
The government of Iceland had mounted a legal challenge against the supermarket at the European Union Intellectual Property Office last week.
Iceland's government aimed to ensure the right of its companies to use the word 'Iceland' in relation to their goods and services''.
The supermarket is said to have ''aggressively pursued'' and won many cases against Icelandic companies which used the word Iceland as part of their trademark.
According to government officials, the supermarket had done so ''even in cases when the products and services do not compete''.
