Elon Musk's Tesla wins trademark dispute against a chicken shop owner

Tesla has won a trademark dispute with a chicken shop owner located in Northern England after a year of back-and-forth arguments.

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The chicken shop owner, Amanj Ali, has his takeaway store located in Bury, Greater Manchester, and in May 2022, Ali filed a trademark for the name of the store. Ali's store was called Tesla Chicken & Pizza, and when he filed the trademark, he cited Nikola Tesla as the inspiration of the name. However, in November 2023, Ali was ordered to pay £4,000, or $5,053 to Tesla for violation of its trademark, which the UK's Intellectual Property Office agreed with.

Despite Tesla originally not objecting to the newly filed trademark by Ali, the chicken shop owner was informed in November 2021 that Tesla had requested international protection for trademarks in the United Kingdom under the food and drink category. Ali opposed the request, and after a year of legal disputes where Tesla claimed Ali's trademark was taking advantage of Tesla's established reputation, the ruling was found in Tesla's favor.

"Imagine, I'm just a small businessman running one chicken shop, and there is a big company coming which is owned by the richest man in the world," Ali told the BBC

When asked about why he wanted to name his chicken shop after Nikola Tesla, Ali said, "He was a kind of intelligent guy... in my young age, I was... reading about him, looking at his pictures."