Nokia wages war on London start-up over “deceptive” branding clash
Lowdownapp, a mobile assistant app, has raised the heckles of Nokia’s fury for naming its location-based service ‘HERE’, mirroring 'Nokia HERE'.
Lowdownapp, a mobile assistant app, has raised the heckles of Nokia’s fury for naming its location-based service ‘HERE’, mirroring 'Nokia HERE'.
A David and Goliath-esque battle looms as a London-based start-up has been threatened with legal action by Nokia over the use of the word ‘HERE’ in its branding.
Lowdownapp, a mobile assistant app, has raised the heckles of Nokia’s fury for naming its location-based service ‘HERE’, mirroring Nokia HERE, a similar service.
A letter from Nokia to Lowdownapp read: “Your use of the HERE sign is likely to deceive members of the relevant public such that they will believe your business is connected with or part of our client’s business, when that is not the case.
“This amounts to a misrepresentation that will cause damage to our client’s goodwill in the UK and amounts to passing off.”
Nokia has given the start-up until 10 February to rebrand, according to the BBC.
David Senior, chief executive of Lowdownapp, responded by calling the demands “ludicrous”.
“People say, ‘I’m here,’ to announce their arrival, which is why we have it as a service. As a small start-up trying to deliver value to users we don’t think a multi-billion dollar company will be affected by this,” he said.
“Life is hard enough without Goliaths squashing Davids, maybe they should focus on creating a better mapping service than Google or Apple than squishing a minuscule business.”
Lowdownapp was founded in 2013 in London.
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rather disingenuous to say they ‘didn’t know about here’ lol. as a publicity stunt I guess it works…but come on, seriously, everyone I know uses Here maps