Fashion brand Chanel 'bullying' SA business over Chocolate at No.5 logo, owner says
An Adelaide Hills chocolate maker has been forced to change her business' logo after being threatened with legal action by global fashion brand Chanel.
The old business logo (L) compared to new one (R) Ms Peck was forced to change to.
(Supplied: Alison Peck)
Alison Peck decided to trademark the name of her business, Chocolate @ No.5 in Hahndorf, after it was inadvertently tagged in an Instagram post meant for a Victorian business with a similar name.
"We were a bit concerned about that and we wanted to protect our trademark for our logos so I went ahead and put applications in to register the trademarks," Ms Peck said.
The lengthy process was due to wrap up in early June when Ms Peck received a letter from Chanel's attorneys opposing the trademark registration.
The fashion label was concerned Ms Peck's logo was too similar to that of its popular perfume Chanel No.5.
"There's an opposition period for a couple of months and that's when the attorneys from Chanel picked up on it and I got a letter from them saying I needed to withdraw those and if I didn't I'd be facing certain consequences," Ms Peck said.
"Quite honestly the thought of a legal battle, it's just too much for the business to handle so I've made some certain concessions and changed our logo."
Ms Peck said she felt she was being "bullied" into agreeing to a number of terms, but refused to sign any requests made by the company.
Chanel's attorneys wanted Ms Peck to agree to change the business' name if it moved premises, and even wanted to impose limitations on the use of the word 'five'.
They also wanted Ms Peck to agree to not oppose any application by Chanel in any of the classes she had tried to register in.
"So even in a chocolate class, if they wanted to register Chocolate No.5 I wasn't allowed to oppose that at all," she said.
"There were a lot of questions and a lot of things they wanted me to do which were out of the realms of where they should be asking, and I wouldn't stand for that.
"I don't know how you can confuse chocolate and perfume but they think that it can be done."
Ms Peck is now out of pocket $3,000 to $4,000 for the wasted trademark registrations and had to pay to rebrand the business' logo.
Chanel to 'monitor' Adelaide business
Ms Peck will also have to purchase new labels for her products, and signage for the front of the business.
"I told them we were changing the logo and that's been done and obviously there will be ongoing expenses, changing labels that sort of thing, but that's a slow process," Ms Peck said.
"I've signed nothing with them. There's no undertaking that we've given them we just said that we would not use the No.5 logo.
"And basically that's it. We need to produce new flyers, we need to produce new business cards, new labels for our products, it's quite an expensive process. New signage for outside."
Ms Peck bought the business, which already had its name and logo, in March 2010.
The name Chocolate @ No.5 comes from the business' address, which is 5 Mount Barker Road.
While things have now settled down, Ms Peck said Chanel's attorneys have told her they will be monitoring the business for any breaches
"They are going to monitor what we are doing and if we overstep what they think are their boundaries, there's sort of an implied threat there that they will take further action," Ms Peck said.
Source: ABC News, Sara Garcia, June 24th 2015
