African firm wins trademark infringement case

An African company has been successful in a trademark infringement case.

A complaint was filed over the domain name irokotvmovies.com by iROKO Partners, one of the world’s largest online providers of African movies and music, IT News Africa reports.

It was alleged by the complainant that Iroko TV Movies deliberately chose a domain that was confusingly similar to its own, was using it in bad faith and had no right to the URL in the first place.

The World Intellectual Property Organization ruled in favour of iROKO Partners and the domain name is now being transferred across and the original website removed.

Bastian Gotter, chief operating officer of iROKO Partners, said: “We have spent the last two years building a respected, global brand. The company in question willfully set out to defraud our loyal fans by infringing our trademarks.”

Mr Gotter added fighting trademark and copyright infringements is vital to the success of Nigeria’s entertainment industry.