Deeside-based Iceland Foods ends trademark fight with Iceland after third legal loss
Iceland Foods, the frozen food retailer headquartered in Deeside, has abandoned its decade-long legal battle over its European trademark after losing for a third time in the EU courts, according to the Financial Times.
Executive chair Richard Walker said the company would not appeal again.
“We lost for a third time. We’re going to throw in the towel. It’s actually fine — we don’t have to change our name,” Walker told the FT.
The dispute began in 2016 when the Icelandic government challenged the supermarket’s European trademark for the word “Iceland,” arguing it was blocking Icelandic businesses from promoting their own products and services.
The EU Intellectual Property Office ruled against the retailer in 2019, finding that it could not “reasonably trademark the name of a country that has been around since the 9th century.”
Iceland Foods appealed, but lost again.
The company then brought a further appeal before the EU General Court in Brussels, which also ruled against it.
Walker said his remaining concern is that the ruling means “other people now have the ability to open shops and call it Iceland and stock Iceland products.”
Instead of a fourth legal challenge, Walker said he planned to redirect the budget set aside for the next round of litigation.
“I’m going to take the couple of hundred of grand we would have spent in legal fees in the fourth and final round in the EU court and reapply that to a rapprochement discount to the good Icelandic people. It’s something I’m going to do,” he told the FT.
The FT reported the gesture would most likely take the form of shopping vouchers.
Iceland’s founder, Malcolm Walker — Richard’s father — sent a delegation to Reykjavik in 2016 in an earlier attempt to resolve the dispute before it escalated legally.
He had argued at the time that the company registered under that name in 1970 and had “co-existed with the country called Iceland very happily ever since.”
Richard Walker was recently appointed a Labour peer and the government’s cost of living champion by Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Iceland Foods operates more than 900 outlets across the UK and has eight concessions within Nettó stores in Iceland.
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