Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/04/18/eyjafjallajokull.html
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This is a little like the “Olympics” trying to assert priority over the name of the peninsula and mountain range in the Pacific Northwest.
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A wide-ranging trademark should never have been granted as it was obvious it would cause conflict down the road. If the Iceland brand had solely been trademarked for frozen food they might have had a case. Iceland (the store) had to be jerks over the trademark once they were granted it for fear of it being abused by others, but it sounds like they didn’t even try to limit their claim to the name.
Naturally, things were even more confusing when Iceland (the store) was owned by Icelanders in the form of Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson’s Baugur Group - until that went spectacularly tits-up in 2009.
Maybe it would be best for everyone if Iceland (the store) just revived the Bejam brand.
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Then, when the country moved to block the nation of Iceland from getting a trademark for the tourist slogan “Inspired by Iceland,” the nation finally sued to have the company’s trademark invalidated and prevailed.
Some British corporate lawyer done fucked up there. That was a profoundly dumb fight to pick, given the shaky ground the market chain was already on… I wonder if someone got fired over that.
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Iceland Foods can still appeal the decision.
They have to! Why does that one socialist judge get to ruin their important business plan? If they let Iceland use the name Iceland, soon France and Mexico and Cote d’Ivoire will be calling themselves Iceland!
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Ooh, I remember writing about this before:
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“Foreign Minister Guðlaugur Þór Þórðarson” I can only dream that I could pronounce this beautiful string of characters.
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Good. Now strip Amazon.com of the .amazon gTLD that it should never have been granted by the supine ICANN.
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Sort of: I doubt that the people living near said peninsula and mountain range have monetized “Olympics” since being named a hundred or so years ago… so, no infringement. But I am no lawyer (thank heavens).
PS: I suggest that the grocery chain name itself Land 'O Ice. 
it’s a lot like this https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47794353
The nations of the Amazon want the name back
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Wikipedia is your friend:
Guðlaugur Þór Þórðarson (Icelandic pronunciation: [kʏðløiːɣʏr θouːr θourðar̥son];
OK, maybe not. But anyone who’s read a fantasy novel knows that Þ is a thorn, so Thor Thor_arson, and we can guess that the missing sound is probably a ‘d’. As we’ve decided that ð is a ‘d’, that first name becomes “Gudlaugur”, so “Gudlaugur Thor Thordarson”.
Just like suðoku.
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Ð or ð is eth and is pronounced th as in than.
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So basically the same as Þ? That’s interesting. We had a dog named after King Harold II’s mother, and never understood the ð in the spelling. How do they transliterate “d” as in “dog” into Icelandic?
Þ is th as in ‘think’, ð is th as in ‘than’.
D is d 
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Eth is not a substitute for D.
So d for dóttir (daughter)
Dog is hundur.
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You see the same letters in Old English: Tharn Þ and Ðagaz Ð. Hard “Th” and soft “th” respectively. I sometimes wish we hadn’t got rid of them. Why do we still have that stupid “q”? No, you CAN’T replace a Ðagaz with a D, although people persist in trying. The worse case I ever saw of that was a Japanese animé called “O my Goddess” which was not bad, considering, but one of the main characters was based on the Norn Verðandi. It came out (in English) as Belldandi. O my goddess…!
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I propose “Realm of Icy Food Crypts”
You often hear this, but I suspect it’s one of those bits of “common knowledge” that is based more in little-Hitlerism than legal reality (though I am sure lawyers are happy to encourage it). Duracell won’t lose their trademark just because they fail to sue the Duracell Nursing Home.
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Personally, I’d prefer it if the country changed its name to Bejamland (Bejamaland? Bejamia?)
