It was nothing pleasant to be informed by internet about "our" new operations in Korea or Turkei that looked exactly the way our Slovak one did. How to protect yourself against global thievery of intellectual property?
The feelings of a person, whose ideas, logo and visual have been stolen, vary with the strong pride. „I guess we are really good,“ claims Ľubor Lelovits, the author and owner of the concept of fast food Mr. KEBAB with a sense of humour. It is possible to steal really everything today: visual, logo, look of the personnel's uniform, offer of food or website. The boundaries or continents play no role in it. „The trademark Mr. KEBAB is in the European Union protected since 2006. Thanks to that, I can protect my rights at least in Hungary, where another one of my operations (nowadays already unlicensed) exists. I have to admit I do not understand it, but it is a compliment in some way. Probably, all the things I have been working on long years trying to settle all the details are not bad,“ reveals Ľ. Lelovits.
THE THIEVES FROM THE OTHER PART OF THE WORLD
What bothers him the most are the new stolen operations in the world. "Koreans contacted me in a time, when the franchise manual Mr. Kebab was still only hardly finished. Considering the responsibility for the brand and my precision, I asked them for the patience. They were not willing to wait and they copied everything they have found on the internet," clarifies the birth of the Seoul "operation" Ľubor Lelovits. As a recession, this store has its place even on the official website www.mrkebab.eu.
By typing the address into browser, you can easily open the Slovak website in stolen Turkish version. What you need to do is to type www.mr-kebab.com. Similarity purely accidental?
Note: The brand Mr. KEBAB is in European Union protected by a trademark.
Justice is a long-term fight
„If another person takes over the particular franchise elements without the consent to use, e.g. uses for own enterprise the external tradmark, visual, graphic website and other elements, he or she breaks the individual rights of franchisor, but, eventually purchaser as well, when the person authorized according to the license can protect himself against the lawbreaker in the same way as the owner himself. If someone immitates the franchise as a whole, without the necessary licenses, he can be commiting a dishonest competition. It is possible to protect ourselves against the lawbreakers first of all through the calls for withdrawal from the unlicensed action, eventually even through the particular actions at the applicable courts. It is important always to consider a concurrence in the market,“ advises JUDr. Leo Vojčík, the managing partner at attorneyship and pattern office Vojčík & Partners.
Ľ. Lelovits is not giving up and even in spite of unwelcome experience claims that enterprise in a form of franchising has a bright future, because of its high effectiveness with fast investment return.
