For the first time, on 4 February, 2021, the High Court of Tanzania (Commercial Division) has issued a decision concerning the protection of well-known trademarks, against infringing company names registered by third parties in the country in a case involving JC Decaux SA and JC Decaux Tanzania Limited (plaintiff) and a local company, JP Decaux Tanzania Limited (defendant).
The main complaint by JC Decaux was that the words JP Decaux infringe the well-known trademark JCDecaux once the designation is confusingly similar to JC Decaux’s registered trademark, with only a difference of a letter in the defendant’s company name, namely, the letter “C”, and considering that the name JC Decaux has been globally using since 1964 and registered as a trademark in 135 countries at least.
The court considered that the similarities between the defendant’s name and the plaintiff’s trademark, differing only in one letter and also covering the same activity, could not be a mere coincidence.
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