INTEL ON INTEL

A CASE STUDY

Brief facts:

In August 2022, the Commercial Division of the High Court in Kampala rendered a decision on the contentious issue of whether a company name registered in Uganda before a trademark owner can amount to trademark infringement.

In the case of Intel on Intel, the plaintiff, Intel Corporation was founded in 1968 by two pioneers in the semiconductor industry. They adopted the ‘dropped e logo’ as a trademark in that same year and first registered its INTEL trademark in class 9 in the US in 1972. The same mark was registered in Uganda in 1999, and subsequently in class 42 in 2011. 

The defendant, INTEL Computers Limited was incorporated in Uganda in 2002 and used the name INTEL in its company name, as well as using the dropped ‘e’ INTEL logo on its storefront. The defendant deals in computer equipment, repair, software installation and networking services. 

INTEL Corporation sued the defendant for trademark infringement based on sections 36 and 37 of the trademarks act 2010 and sought orders directing the defendant to change its company name to one that does not incorporate the INTEL mark. The defendant argued that it registered its company in good faith and that there is no likelihood of confusion between its company name and the business it does, with that of the plaintiff. 

INTEL Corporation presented evidence showing that the INTEL trademark is its primary trademark which it uses on or in association with virtually all aspects of its business, including products, services, packaging, communications, social media and advertising. The plaintiff also was not merely a microprocessor company but a multi-faceted business spanning health, computers and other areas which due to the internet are inter-connected. Further evidence was given to show that the use of the INTEL word in the defendant’s storefront with a dropped ‘e’ logo amounted to infringement, as it is a copy of its dropped ‘e’ logo. The plaintiff argued that the use of the defendant’s name INTEL Computers increases the likelihood of confusion as it is descriptive of the plaintiff’s field of operation.

The defendants argued that there was no trademark infringement because they had conducted a company search and found the name INTEL Computers was available for registration as a company, after which it was incorporated. There was a further argument for the fact that their core area of business is a provision of computer repair services which they began many years before the plaintiff registered its trademark in class 42 for computer-related services.

According to the defendant, there is no conflict between the parties’ interests as the plaintiff’s trademark was registered for the protection of goods and only much later did they file for trademark protection for services, after the defendant had registered their business. Lastly, the defendant claimed that over the 9 years it has been in existence, it has gained substantial goodwill and recognition in the repair and installation of software for its small-scale consumers.

The court decided in favour of the defendants that the use of the word INTEL and the dropped ‘e’ logo did not amount to an infringement on the part of the defendants. 

“ The designer’s role in the development, application and protection of the trademark may be described as pre-creative, creative and post-creative.”

Lester Beall

Analysis:

It would be undone if we analysed this case without properly understanding what a trademark is and what would constitute an infringement thereof. A trademark is a legal protection given to any word, name, symbol, or design that is used to identify the product of one manufacturer from another. With the rise of businesses, a trademark helps a layman identify one product from another. The commonest example of this is Coca-Cola. Its trademark helps us distinguish it from other sodas. The value of a registered trademark is not limited to the name alone but extends to other parts of a company’s brand, for example, the shape of a Coca-Cola bottle is trademarked to its brand. 

What amounts to the infringement of a trademark? 

Once a trademark is duly registered, it confers particular rights upon the owner thereof including the right to prevent unauthorised use of that trade mark by third parties concerning the goods or services specified on the register. A third party may use an identical mark on similar goods and services as in the case above, however, for an infringement to be established, it must be shown that:

• The use of the mark must have resulted in the possibility of the public being likely to be confused as to the origin of the goods or services;
• There is a possibility of an association between the two marks.

This argument was argued by the plaintiff and to establish the above criteria the following factors, the court will take into account the following factors;

• How widely the trademark is recognised on the market for the goods or services it represents;
• The association between the two marks;
• The similarity between the two marks and the goods or services.

We beg to disagree with the court’s decision in the case, especially given that the use of a trademark should extend to all kinds of commercial recognition. The trademark INTEL is used widely in Uganda given the fact that close to 80% of computers operating within our borders run on INTEL processors. The defendant’s use of INTEL in their company name and their storefront is bound to cause confusion that the plaintiff feared given that the defendants are in the same line of business. The adoption of the dropped ‘e’ logo also amounts to an infringement of the plaintiff’s trademark. The use of the dropped ‘e’ logo may not have been as innocent as the defendants argued. 

This case overall sets a bad precedent in regards to the infringement of trademarks.

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