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Johannesburg – Orangeworks Accounting Software has won the right to use its name, after a four-year battle with French-German mobile network operator Orange.
The network operator has been trying to compel local businesses to stop using the word or the colour orange in their names.
"I just felt very strongly that we had to fight for our rights as a South African company that was being bullied by a multinational," says Orangeworks CEO Siegfried Rousseau.
The Registrar of Trade Marks told the court the products and services offered by the companies were sufficiently dissimilar for consumers not to be confused (as argued by Orange). The court therefore upheld Orangeworks' right to continue trading under the name, and awarded it costs.
These, says Rousseau, amounted to "several hundred thousand rands".
Standing up to multinational bullyingRousseau says that changing corporate colours or the name "would not have been the end of the world", but felt strongly about standing up to the bullying.
Rousseau says when he realised the weakness of Orange's case he tried for a settlement. "We wanted to talk and I was even willing to fly to their offices in the UK, but they only wanted to talk if I agreed to some pre-conditions such as changing our colours, and this is something we were not willing to do."
Two other businesses that fought similar pressure eventually settled, according to Rousseau.
An estimated 400 South African companies use the word orange in their logo or name, and they cover a wide spectrum of business, mostly not in competition with Orange.
But Orange, which registered its name in SA in 1996, has put pressure on many of them to change their names. It is now known how many succumbed to the pressure, but most are thought to be small businesses without the resources to fight a multinational giant in court.
One of them was Orange Ink, a public relations consultancy, which generated a wave of negative publicity about the multinational. Orange eventually agreed it could continue trading as Orange Ink as long as both words were always used in combination, and the corporate colour was changed.
- Fin24.com