NEWS Facebook sets ultimatum over restaurant slogan
Social media company Facebook has reportedly told a Vietnam-based restaurant to stop using the Facebook name in a slogan or face legal proceedings.
Nang Ganh restaurant, based in Ho Chi Minh City, uses a slogan translating as “T e fi rst restaurant built on Facebook” in tribute to more than 100 Facebook users who invested in it last year.
T e message has been printed on signboards, bags, menus, name cards, leafl ets and other promotional material, prompting a cease-and- desist letter from Facebook dated August 13.
Nguyen T i T anh Nhan, the restaurant’s owner, told Vietnamese newspaper T anh Nien News on August 27 that Facebook said her promotional material risks confusing consumers that it has off ered the restaurant sponsorship or recognition.
“Your use of the Facebook trademark may
constitute a violation of IP rights and competition as defi ned by Vietnamese IP laws,” said the letter, a copy of which the newspaper has obtained.
It demanded that Nguyen withdraw an application to register the restaurant’s slogan and that she should come up with another one, giving her until September 15 to reply or face legal proceedings.
But Nguyen, who opened the restaurant with the help of $30,000, told T anh Nien News she doesn’t think the slogan implies that Facebook was directly involved in the restaurant’s founding or operation.
“I still want to use this slogan because it refl ects the true story of how the restaurant got started,” she said.
T is is believed to be Facebook’s fi rst such dispute in Vietnam. It did not respond to a request for comment.
Zara apologises over ‘holocaust’ pyjamas
Fashion retailer Zara has apologised and removed a line of striped pyjamas aſt er it was fl ooded with criticism on social media amid claims
it uniform.
T e chain came in for heavy criticism of its striped Sheriff T-shirt, aimed at young children.
Social media users claimed the product, which has horizontal stripes and a yellow star in the corner, was similar to the uniforms Jewish prisoners were forced to wear in concentration camps during World War 2.
T e Zara design was fi rst picked up by Middle East news website +
972mag.com.
Journalist Dimi Reider wrote: “It’s a Sheriff shirt for your three-year-old. Obviously. What else could it be?”
T e Spanish-owned retailer was then roundly criticised on social media, such as Twitter. One
6 Trademarks & Brands Online Volume 3, Issue 3 resembled a concentration camp
user, @n_rothschild, tweeted: “What were the designers thinking @Zara?”
Another, with the username @shulnam_k, tweeted: “T e new #Zara Sheriff T-shirt is somewhat #Holocaust ish in its design don’t you agree?” James Masters, @Masters_JamesD, wrote, alongside a picture of the product, “T is is rather staggering … on sale in German branches of Zara.”
T e retailer apologised on August 27 via its offi cial account and said the shirt was no longer available. A spokesperson for Zara’s parent company Inditex said the T-shirt had been removed from all Zara stores and the store’s website.
“T e garment was inspired by the classic Western fi lms, but we now recognise that the design could be seen as insensitive and apologise sincerely for any off ence caused to our customers,” the company added.
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