Chicken Inn wins trademark battle…. Chicken Slice barred from using “Luv”

Chicken Inn, through its parent company, Innscor Africa Limited claimed a huge victory after the Supreme Court ruled in their favour by barring Slice Distributors trading as Chicken Slice from using the word “Luv” as part of their trademark.

The long running battle came to an end on Friday after the Supreme Court ruled Chicken Slice was indeed infringing on its competitors trademark.

The ruling follows a successful appeal by Innscor which approached the upper court appealing against a High Court ruling in favour of Chicken Slice.

Full judgement was not readily available.

Earlier this year, High Court Justice Sylvia Chirawu-Mugomba dismissed Chicken Inn’s application after it filed an application in 2019 seeking an interdict against Chicken Slice for using its trademark, ‘Luv’ and its colours.

Chicken Inn took the rivalry with Chicken Slice to the courts arguing that the latter had used ‘Luv’ in its burger and grill logo.

The company also argued it has always used ‘Luv Dat Chicken’ since in 1987 before Chicken Slice started using ‘I Luv it’ on its burgers boxes.

Chicken Inn submitted that the resemblance of the trademark and colours confuses consumers of their products.

Chicken Slice rebuffed the accusations arguing that Chicken Inn does not own exclusive rights to the tagline ‘Luv’.

In delivering judgement, Justice Sylvia Chirawu-Mugomba had said beside the word ‘Luv’, the marks used are not similar and are used on the burger rather than the Chicken Slice logo.

“In my view a national customer who encounters the products of the plaintiff and the first defendant is not likely to be confused by the difference between them,” said the judge.

Now this has been set aside.