Nando's in trademark row with independent chicken shop Fernando's... but owner claims his fast food eatery is based on Take Me Out's holiday island

Nando's claims that local restaurant Fernando's is infringing copyright
Sophie Williams13 March 2018

Nando's is embroiled in a trademark row with the owner of an independent chicken shop called Fernando's who claims his restaurant is named after the Take Me Out dating show's holiday island.

The chicken giant has asked the independent chicken shop in Reading to change its name and logo, accusing it of too many similarities with its trademark branding.

Fernando's received a legal letter claiming that the shop's name and logo was an infringement of Nando's intellectual property rights.

The letter claimed that cockerel and chilli images that Fernando's uses on its menus and in store are "highly similar" to the Nando's-owned trademarks "Barcelos Cockerel" and "Peri-ometer".

The owner of the restaurant says the experience has been stressful (Fernando's)
Fernandos

Nando's also claimed that the Fernando's name is too similar to its own.

But the restaurant owner claims he came up with the idea for his restaurant's theme with the help of his friends. The name came from the fictitious island in TV show Take Me Out which Aziz told the Standard he watches “every Saturday.”

He said that he just wanted to make a halal chicken shop in Reading which he says is lacking in the city. He added: “I had no intention and I had no idea that it was close to Nando's chicken. We opened about seven months ago and everything was fantastic. I was overwhelmed, it's really popular and really busy.”

When it came to picking the theme, he wanted to reflect the Peri Peri recipe that he had come up with: “Everything we did, we tried to get it into a Portuguese style. We needed a logo. Initially I typed into Google, chicken symbol Portuguese. All of them came up on Google were the Barcello, it's used everywhere in Portugal, in restaurants and people have them in their house etc. That symbol itself is very much Portuguese.”

However Aziz says the large chain has now given him two weeks to make changes.

Nando's told the BBC: "We believe it is trying to benefit from some of the things that make us who we are."

Aziz says it took a year to come up with the branding for the restaurant and it's now a huge stress to think about how to change it.

He said: “It's created such a huge stress because not only have I got people contacting me, on top of that it's the stress of ending up in court or having to re brand.

“A company like Nando's, it's not going to affect them, it would make me go bankrupt." He accused the chain of "bullying".

A spokesman for Nando's said: "We are really proud of our brand and we know it means a lot to our customers.

“That’s why whenever we think there is trademark infringement we try to sort it out amicably.

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