The Vodafone brand, which was registered nine years ago by Telemobil (Zapp) with the State Office for Inventions and Brands (OSIM), is now being claimed by British mobile telephone operator Vodafone. The brand has become a real bone of contention in the Romanian telecoms industry.
Both companies are putting forward arguments to support their positions on the issue and an amicable solution seems out of reach at this point. The case has been brought to court, with the next hearing scheduled for December 8.
"We registered the brand in 1995, when we were the only mobile telephone operator on the market. Besides Vodafone, we also protected brands such as MobiFon, MoviFon, MiniFon and others, and the brand was conceived as an abbreviation of Voice&Data Phone," Silviu Nedelcu, a Telemobil lawyer, told Ziarul Financiar.
Telemobil representatives claim that Vodafone was not a well-known brand nine years ago outside Romania. Lawyers maintain "there are some unjustified pressures for the case to be resolved quickly, without anyone thoroughly examining the issue".
OSIM's position is also interesting. While it approved Telemobil's application in 1995 for brand registration, OSIM's director, Gabor Varga, says the statement included in the case file mentions the fact that the brand was well known at the time and that Zapp's action has a touch of "advertising" to it.
The lawyer defending the interests of the British company in the case, Lucian Mihai, who is a former chairman of the Constitutional Court, told Ziarul Financiar that the issue of the brand being well known is in fact irrelevant. "Vodafone requested that Telemobil lose rights over the brand since it has not used it in the last five years, in line with the law," said representative of Linklaters Miculitii & Asociatii law firm. The Vodafone lawyer maintains that the registration was ill-intentioned.
"There is no better illustration of an ill-intentioned registration of a brand than this," said Lucian Mihai. He underlined the fact that it was Telemobil's intention to drag out this case.
At the same time, market rumours have it that MobiFon, the Connex operator and in which Vodafone holds a 20.1% stake, is considering a rebranding under this name next year.
"We are rejecting this rumour and we are in no way involved in the lawsuit related to the rights over the Vodafone brand," MobiFon COO, Ted Lattimore, told Ziarul Financiar.
dan.dragomir@zf.ro
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