\n<\/p>\n
A Liverpool pet products company, Boss Pets, has been told to take down its website after the fashion house Hugo Boss said its name was infringing its trademark.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoss\u201d is a commonly used slang word in Merseyside, used to mean something is great or excellent. Ben McDonald, from Bootle, set up the online pet health supplies business in February, the BBC reported.<\/p>\n
McDonald, who describes himself as \u201cjust a lad from Bootle\u201d who had spent \u201cevery spare penny\u201d launching the business, said his \u201cwhole world collapsed\u201d when he received a letter from the brand demanding he stop using the word. He was given 10 days to take down his website or face legal action.<\/p>\n
His lawyer, Francis McEntegart, said: \u201cMy client is a small local business that is just starting out selling pet wellness products. It\u2019s not going to interfere with the profits of Hugo Boss in any way.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Hugo Boss said she was aware of the colloquial use of the word, but that the company needed to \u201cprotect our brand rights\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are aware that the English word \u2018boss\u2019 is one that is commonly used,\u201d she said. \u201cNevertheless, it\u2019s our responsibility to monitor and protect our brand rights globally and address unclear cases where needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we became aware of the registration, we have approached the business owner as the intended registration represents an overlap with our trademarks,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs an international fashion company, we need to \u2013 like any other corporation \u2013 take measures to protect our existing trademark rights. These measures apply to both of our brands, Boss and Hugo.\u201d<\/p>\n
The German fashion house is known for fiercely enforcing its trademark. In 2020, the comedian Joe Lycett briefly changed his name by deed poll to Hugo Boss in response to the company sending cease-and-desist letters to small businesses and charities that had used the word boss in their names.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Liverpool pet products company, Boss Pets, has been told to take down its website after the fashion house Hugo Boss said its name was infringing its trademark. \u201cBoss\u201d is a commonly used slang word in Merseyside, used to mean something is great or excellent. Ben McDonald, from Bootle, set up the online pet health<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[1120,2071,2068,2069,2070,1552,272,2072],"class_list":{"0":"post-9632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-boss","9":"tag-company","10":"tag-hugo","11":"tag-liverpool","12":"tag-owner","13":"tag-pets","14":"tag-tells","15":"tag-website"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}