Nation of Iceland wages name battle with UK grocer Iceland

LONDON — The island nation of Iceland said on Thursday (Nov 24) it is taking legal action against British frozen-food chain Iceland over the right to use their shared name.

Iceland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it has challenged Iceland Foods at the European Union Intellectual Property Office. It says it is acting because the retail chain “aggressively pursued” Icelandic companies using the word Iceland in their branding.

The legal challenge comes after multiple efforts to negotiate a “fair solution” with the supermarket chain had failed, the ministry said.

Iceland Foods holds a Europe-wide trademark registration for the word “Iceland”, and the Nordic country’s government said it was “exceptionally broad and ambiguous in definition”.

In a statement, the ministry said the situation has left the country’s firms “unable to describe their products as Icelandic”.

The retailer, which has operated supermarkets across Britain for 46 years, said it would fight the claim.

It said it does not believe “any serious confusion or conflict has ever arisen in the public mind” between the chain of stores and the volcanic Viking-founded nation.

“Though sometimes confused with a small country of Viking origins on the fringes of the Arctic Circle, the real Iceland is a unique British food retailer with over 860 stores throughout the UK, a further 40 owned or franchised stores across Europe and a global export business”, is how it describes itself on its website.

“We hope that the government will contact us directly so that we may address their concerns,” the company said. It added: “Contrary to their assertion, we have received no recent approaches to achieve an amicable resolution of this issue, which would be our preferred approach.”

The two Icelands once had a close relationship. Icelandic retail conglomerate Baugur Group held a major stake in the grocer until Baugur’s collapse in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis that devastated Iceland’s economy. AGENCIES