Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) is being sued by the founder of easyJet (LON: EZJ) over the new series Easy, claiming it infringes his company’s European trademarks.
The easyJet founder, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, will take legal action over the streaming service claiming that it is simply another “brand thief” attempting to “piggyback” off his easyGroup business.
The new series on Netflix has been described as an “eclectic, star-studded anthology [which] follows diverse Chicagoans fumbling through the modern maze of love, sex, technology and culture”.
The easyGroup business, which also owns easyBus, easyCar, easyVan easyHotel (LON: EZH), as well as many other brands, is seeking a high court injunction to prevent Netflix from using the programme name in Europe.
A spokesman for easyGroup said: “EasyGroup now owns more than 1,000 registered trademarks within the easy family of brands all over the world and takes its protection from unauthorised use very seriously.”
Haji-Ioannou said: “This is a case of typically arrogant behaviour by a very large American tech company who never bothered to check what legal rights other companies have outside the US.”
“When Joe Swanberg came up with the name ‘easy’ for his new TV series a couple of years ago they should have checked with their European lawyers before using it. We own the European trademark in the word easy and another thousand trademarks with easy as a prefix and we can’t allow people to use it now as a brand name, especially when they are doing it mostly with our colours and font.”
“At least I am pleased that Netflix have said that they will stop at series three anyway. However, we have to stop them from promoting the older series in Europe for online streaming.”
Netflix said in a statement that “viewers can tell the difference between a show they watch and a plane they fly in”.
