Easy Come, Easy Go, Easy Does It

Hopefully this nasty little attempt to sue will be kicked out of court.

The billionaire businessman and easyJet founder, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, is taking legal action against Netflix over its comedy series Easy, claiming its use of the name breaches his company’s European trademarks.

Here we go…

Joe Swanberg’s comedy-drama anthology series is billed as an “eclectic, star-studded anthology [which] follows diverse Chicagoans fumbling through the modern maze of love, sex, technology and culture”. Launched on Netflix in September 2016 and due for its third and final season in 2019, its ensemble cast includes Orlando Bloom and Emily Ratajkowski.

And the problem with this? Easy as in a television drama is clearly not the same thing as an airline or car rental company. Besides “easy” is a word in common usage in the English language. No one should be allowed to trademark a common word. EasyJet, sure as it is a distinctive combination, but merely the word “easy” no, not in a million years.

A spokesman for easyGroup said it would start legal proceedings at the beginning of the week, confirming a story first reported by the Sunday Times. He added: “EasyGroup now owns more than 1,000 registered trademarks within the easy family of brands all over the world and takes its protection from unauthorised use very seriously.”

But a drama called “Easy” is not by any stretch of the imagination, impinging on their brand. I could write a book and call it Easy or perhaps The Big Easy – except it’s already been done and the lawyer’s letter is presumably in the post – but this would not be unauthorised use of their brand because they do not own the word “Easy” as it is an English word that we all use and it would have nothing to do with orange aeroplanes or cars.

Netflix said in a statement that “viewers can tell the difference between a show they watch and a plane they fly in”.

Well, quite.

Haji-Ioannou said: “This is a case of typically arrogant behaviour by a very large American tech company who never bothered to check what legal rights other companies have outside the US.

Hello Mr Pot, I’d like to introduce you to Mr Kettle. Haji-Ioannou is the one exhibiting arrogance here. I always thought the man a prize jerk, now he demonstrates that my analysis was accurate. I am damned sure that Mr Haji-Ioannou does not own the word “easy” despite it being plastered all over his companies – because it is a word in common usage in the English language. If he has trademarked it, it will be an abuse of trademark law.

When Joe Swanberg came up with the name ‘easy’ for his new TV series a couple of years ago they should have checked with their European lawyers before using it.

Why? It’s a common word in the English language and no one is going to think that they are watching a show about orange aeroplanes.

We own the European trademark in the word easy and another thousand trademarks with easy as a prefix and we can’t allow people to use it now as a brand name, especially when they are doing it mostly with our colours and font.

Looks like a fairy standard font – cooperblack. You can buy it from Adobe. So not exactly unique to them as it is in common usage. The Netflix drama uses a similar font, but it is not the same, as an inspection of the letters will determine – it has sharper edges whereas cooperblack is much more rounded. As for the colours, I see nothing that is obviously the same as easyJet. It’s a television drama – therefore there can be no obvious attempt to pass off here.

Hopefully, the courts will hand Haji-Ioannou his arse on a plate and a hefty legal bill as well as cancelling any trademarks that are merely the word “easy”.