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Zivko Mijatovic & Partners
Article

When life gives you lemon…

Published 28 September 2017
Reading time 1 min read

John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, pressured a Polish family business selling vegan flavoured lemonade called John Lemon in few EU countries to settle on alleged infringement of John Lennon’s trademark and personal rights.

Photography: http://john-lemon.pl/en/

The Polish company was defending itself by stating that the relevant public of their products (aged between 20-30 and living in the EU countries) does not really know who John Lennon was.

Furthermore, was filed as a trademark in 2013 and afterwards registered under number 012073979 in the European Union Industrial Property Office whereas the John Lennon trademark was filed only in 2016  (EU 015697022 and EU 015712987).

Not wanting to engage in a costly court proceeding in Hague, the Netherlands, lemonade producers signed a settlement agreement with the celebrity’s former wife and now are obliged to remove products bearing John Lemon brand from the market. The new name of the drink will not differ much. Only two first letters J, H will be removed  from the beginning, keeping the “surname” as it was. The new brand will be “On Lemon” where “on” means “he” in Polish.

Joanna Szota

This text is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as legal advice. Should you require any additional information, feel free to contact us.

Every case is different.

If this topic affects your business, talk to our team.

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