Laundry Company in a Spin Over Use of Tyne and Wear Metro Logo

The Tyne and Wear Metro logo is iconic for people from or who live in the North East of England. When you come across the black M on the yellow background it is instantly recognisable and it serves as a beacon to all users of public transport in the North East of England. However, despite the iconic status of the logo to residents of the North East, nobody would expect to come across it in Dubai.

Nexus, the operators of the Tyne and Wear Metro, called in their lawyers earlier this week when it was brought to their attention that the Metro logo was being used by a laundry company in the United Arab Emirates.

Metro Automatic Laundry had created a marketing strategy including posters which featured the Metro logo. When contacted by lawyer from Nexus the laundry company apologised for the 'genuine unintentional mistake' and has removed the logo from all material. The laundry company stated that they had relied on a marketing company in Dubai to create the advertising material and were completely unaware that the logo was used elsewhere.

Nexus welcomed the apology and the removal of the logo from the laundry company materials and confirmed that they now considered the matter closed.

Although this story appears light hearted and was quickly resolved it does raise some serious points about protection of your brand. A brand is one of the most important assets owned by a company and it is vital that you have in place a strategy for protecting your brand. This includes enhancing the protection your brand has by registering a trade mark(s) but also keeping an eye on your market and your competitors to ensure your brand is not being infringed in any way. If you are new to the marketplace and only just starting to develop a brand this case also shows the importance of ensuring material you use does not infringe the rights of others.

The team at McDaniel and Co. can register trade marks for you and assist in developing a brand protection strategy. If you wish to discuss this further please do not hesitate to contact the team on 0191 281 4000 or by email to legal@mcdanielslaw.com.