Want to ban the Icelandic Sushi Samba

The international restaurant chain Sushi Samba has subpoened the owners of the Icelandic restaurant with the same name. The owners of the international chain think that the owners of the Icelandic restaurant are using the name without an authorization and think that they have the international exclusive right.

Among the evidence that the international chain submitted when the case was heard by The Icelandic Patent Office, where the complaint was first submitted, was a news article that was published at Vísir, about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes dining together at Sushi Samba at Þingholtsstræti in the year of 2012.

It is believed that this was the last meal of the couple before they divorced.

"Do you think that they had dined there because they were going to eat food at some place in Iceland? Of course not, of course they ate there because they had often eaten at Sushi Samba in New York," Magnús Haukur Magnússon, lawyer of the international company Samba LLC, says.

The company argues that foreign animal protectionists had visited the restaurant Sush Samba in Iceland and were shocked to see minke whale meat available there. The consumption of whalemeat is a very sensitive issue in the U.S. and therefore news on such a thing could have a very negative effect on the international trademark.

The case has been handled by The Icelandic Patent Office and the appellate committe that each time both ruled in favour of the Icelandic owners of Sushi Samba.

The appellate committee believed that it needs to be proved that the registration of the trademark had been in "bad faith" and it was not sufficient to prove that the owners of Sushi Samba in Iceland had known or should have known about the foreign trademark.

Samba LCC wants that this ruling to be rescinded and that Sushi Samba ehf. should stop using the name here in Iceland. This will be settled before Reykjavík District Court, but there will be a court hearing on March 10th.