7-Eleven victorious against Seven Network in 7NOW trademark battle
In a two-year legal battle, Seven Network has been defeated on Thursday by convenience store giant 7-Eleven in a trademarks dispute concerning competing logos featuring the mark "7NOW."
The decision brings 7-Eleven closer to obtaining the trademark for 7NOW in Australia, enabling them to introduce a delivery app under that name.
The 7NOW delivery service of 7-Eleven was launched internationally in July 2020 and promoted on the website 7now.com. 7-Eleven has plans to offer a similar delivery service in Australia using the same 7NOW brand.
As part of the trademark registration process, 7-Eleven successfully applied to have Seven Network's existing 7NOW trademark removed from the register, citing non-use by the media company for at least three years.
The Australian Trade Marks Office, IP Australia, found that Seven Network had not used the 7NOW logo as a trademark during the relevant three-year period, except for a domain name that redirected to a 7PLUS website.
Seven Network appealed the decision, seeking to overturn it, but the Court now dismissed the appeal.
While Seven Network argued that 7-Eleven’s 7NOW logo resembled its branding and could cause confusion, the Court stated that use of 7NOW by another entity for retail services was unlikely to confuse consumers or harm Seven Network's reputation. The Court noted that, if consumers encountered the 7NOW mark in connection with convenience store services, they would not confuse them with Seven Network’s broadcasting services.
7-Eleven successfully argued that Seven Network should not be able to monopolize all “7” logo marks for a broad spectrum of goods and services, including those outside its broadcasting services. Justice Thawley acknowledged these arguments, recognizing the desire of different traders to use trademarks containing the digit 7.
Seven Network has indicated that it will oppose 7-Eleven’s pending trademark registration for the 7NOW trademark in Australia, meaning that the legal battle between the two firms will continue.
