easyJet is a very familiar brand in the UK, known for its low-cost flights across Europe and recognisable orange livery. The easyGroup’s range of services has expanded far beyond offering flights, now including package holidays, hotels, gyms, storage and even office space, all under the “easy” brand.
The easyGroup owns a large number of UK trade mark registrations in respect of “easy” marks, and has over the years aggressively pursued third parties using the term “easy”, including Easy Life (band name), EasyJetwash (pressure washing services), Easyfundraising (charitable services) and even an action against Netflix in respect of its comedy show titled Easy. This aggressive approach to brand protection has often resulted in an unfavourable outcome for the easyGroup.
The latest battle is with the well-known budget hotel chain Premier Inn. The easyGroup took issue with Premier Inn using “easy” as part of its tagline “Rest easy”:
Premier Inn has used the tagline “Rest easy” since 2021. In 2023 the easyGroup approached Premier Inn in regards to its use of “easy” within its tagline. However, Premier Inn did not consider its use to be in conflict with the easyGroup’s rights or that consumers would be misled or draw an association between its use of “easy” and the easyGroup.
Amongst its plethora of “easy” trade marks, the easyGroup owns UK trade mark registrations for the marks easy, easyHotel and Rest Easy Apartments. These were the registered rights relied on by the easyGroup in its complaint against Premier Inn.
Because Premier Inn refused to stop using its tagline, the easyGroup filed an action against the hotel group for infringement of its easy, easyHotel and Rest Easy Apartments trade marks, all of which pre-date Premier Inn’s use of its tagline.
The easyGroup also argued that Premier Inn’s use of “Rest easy” took unfair advantage of its reputation and goodwill in its “easy” trade marks, and sought to rely on consumer survey evidence to show that Premier Inn had benefitted commercially by essentially piggybacking off the easyGroup’s reputation and goodwill in its “easy” marks. The easyGroup owner, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou said “Premier Inn are deliberately seeking to create confusion if a consumer Googles the phrase “rest easy hotel”, which results in the top two organic results as Premier Inn and the genuine member of the easy family of brands easyHotel.com. So Premier Inn are stealing clicks from the easy family!”
This was dismissed by the Court on the grounds that the survey data did not evidence any change in consumer behaviour as a result of Premier Inn adopting the “Rest easy” tagline. The Court also took issue with the timing of the easyGroup’s infringement action, coming two years after the launch of the branding by Premier Inn.
In its recent judgement, the Court considered the distinctiveness of the respective “easy” and “Rest easy” marks within the hospitality sector, finding that these were common words/phrases in the English language, which limits their ability to designate the commercial origin of service coming from a particular undertaking (being the purpose of a trade mark). As such, the easyGroup is not able to monopolise the use of the word “easy”.
Although the Court found that the respective marks were similar to a low degree, it essentially decided that there was no infringement, that the average consumer would not make a link between Premier Inn’s tagline and the easyGroup’s marks, and that there was no unfair advantage.
The easyGroup’s owner, Stelios Haji-Ioannou, has already indicated his intention to appeal the decision, stating that “every UK trademark owner… should be worried about the value of their assets if this decision remains unchallenged”
Trade mark laws exist to put in place reasonable boundaries around what can be monopolised – it is basically impossible to get exclusive rights to a common word for all purposes despite public perception. Clearly the easyGroup pushing the boundaries to see how broadly they can protect their brand. The appeal in this case, if filed, will tell us in due course where these boundaries will be set, and whether Premier Inn can continue to “rest easy” or needs to change its brand!
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