An Accra Fast Track High Court has on Thursday granted an ex parte application brought against owner of Aphrodisiac Night Club, Confidence Haugen to stop using a logo she is currently using for her Konfidence fashion line.
In September 2012, Confidence launched her fashion line which is made up shoes, bags and accessories.
The court, presided over by Justice Cecilia H Sowah, placed a restraining order after Ghanaian designer Makeba Boateng,
who owns Keba Clothing, sued her for infringing on her intellectual
property rights having created and actively used and popularized the
logo since 2002.
The court ordered the cessation of the use of her "K" with a butterfly
logo for the Konfidence Fashion Limited and its products.
According to her lawyers, Makeba has been duly acknowledged by the
Registrar General's Department as being first-in-time to initiate the
process to register the logo under the country's trade mark laws.
Makeba popularly known together with her clothing line logo in the
industry as Keba, according to her lawyers, personally alerted
Confidence when the defendant sought advice from her in July 2011 about
how to go about the clothing business. Her lawyers said, Makeba revealed
to the former Big Brother Africa housemate that the logo she intended
to use was hers but Confidence did not seem to have taken the advice and
has gone as far as to alter the C in her name to K just to infringe her
intellectual property rights in the logo.
Lawyer Samson Lardy Ayenini who argued the application on behalf of his
senior Charles Zwennes told the court that the action of the defendant
was deliberate and intended to unlawfully supplant the goodwill Keba has
enjoyed in the industry and confuse the public.
The court granted the order which means from now Confidence is
prevented from using the logo for any business until she appears in
court to justify why she must be allowed to use it, pending the final
determination of the suit.
A bailiff is expected to serve Confidence with the order and she has within 21 days to respond.
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