easyJet trademark owner easyGroup Holdings has sued Colombian scheduled carrier EasyFly (Colombia) (Bogotá) for trademark infringement in a Miami federal court. It also named the travel sites Kayak and Skyscanner in the January 7 complaint for facilitating bookings on behalf of Easyfly and allegedly profiting from the trademark.
EasyGroup owns 35 “easy”-related brands, 21 of which have trademark registrations in the United States, according to the online legal research service Bloomberg Law.
Easyfly, meanwhile, was launched in 2007 by Alfonso Ávila, founder of Colombia’s AeroRepública, which he sold to Copa Airlines (CM, Panamá City Tocumen International) in 2005. The easyGroup complaint claims that the name was chosen “with the intent of copying easyGroup’s highly successful ‘easy’ family of marks in general and easyJet in particular.”
The lawsuit filed at the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida comes on top of a ruling in Bogotá published on October 7 last year that ordered Ávila to pay COP30 million pesos (USD8,800) in damages for brand infringement. There is also a lawsuit pending on the issue at the High Court of Justice in London.
“If the pirate airline crashes one of its planes and US consumers associate the pirate mark with the 'easy' family of marks, it could irreparably and irreversibly undermine goodwill and trust,” easyGroup argued.
About Kayak and Skyscanner, the group said: “These parties benefit from the online traffic by using the infringing mark to offer services despite the fact that they do not ultimately sell the ticket.”
In a separate ruling on December 19, a judge at the High Court of Justice in London granted the group an injunction ordering an Italian law firm using the brand Easyrimborso from making any further use of the easyrimborso logo, also awarding easyGroup damages to be assessed as well as legal costs of GBP35,000 pounds (USD45,000), an easyGroup statement said.
