Sushi Samba Cannot Call Itself Sushi Samba Anymore

The Supreme Court has ruled that the Icelandic restaurant Sushi Samba can no longer use this name, as the owners had deliberately lifted the name from an American restaurant chain of the same name.

Kjarninn reports that the court further ordered the Icelandic Patent Office to forbid all Icelandic businesses from using this name.

For the unfamiliar, the Icelandic restaurant Sushi Samba is not a part of the American restaurant chain Sushi Samba. Icelandic restaurant owners registered their name in 2011, while the original version has been a registered trademark since 2000.

While the court said that the American chain failed to prove that their restaurants were “common knowledge” to the general Icelandic public, the court did decide that the owners of the Icelandic restaurant deliberately took the name for their own business.

As such, the Icelandic restaurant has been forbidden from using the name, and were also made to pay 1.5 million ISK in restitution.