September 2019. Rovio Entertainment, the Finnish company behind the world-famous Angry Birds computer game, has had its feathers ruffled by a restaurant in California calling itself Angry Birdz Chicken.

Complaint

In June, Rovio filed a complaint against the name with the District Court in California. There may not be a significant risk of confusion – since eating chicken and a computer game are very different things – but Rovio is still concerned that its well-known Angry Birds trademark could be diluted and lose some of its distinctiveness. According to Rovio, Angry Birdz Chicken is trying to piggyback on the worldwide reputation of the Angry Birds trademark and it is therefore demanding that the restaurant change its name.

Angry bite

That said, the Finnish games company recently failed to halt the registration of ‘Angry Bite’ as a trademark for snacks in Malaysia. This is surprising, given that Angry Bite comes very close to Angry Birds, not least in the design of its angry eyes logo. So we’ll be interested to see how this case in the US pans out.

Bas Kist