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French Designer Ordered to Give up milka.fr
jmf writes "The BBC is running a story about French designer Milka Budumir, who has been ordered by a judge to give up milka.fr to Kraft Foods. You can read her side of the story (in French) at her site which also points to Kraft's side of the story. Kraft make very good chocolate, but they seem to be colour-blind: claiming that this website's colour is similar to this one's."
Kraft Deutschland owns the Milka brand, which is one of the finest varieties of chocolate in Germany.
I believe they purchased the brand after it was well-establishee but that doesn't matter at this point, as Kraft's name is on the letterhead.
Milka Budumir isn't a designer... She's just a seamstress who got her name / domain name given to her by her son for her birthday. It's not like she has a brand to defend ; OTOH she's not causing Kraft any harm.
.fr domain names, which were only available to registered companies with a trademark brand name (you had to show paperwork), which certainly explains this ruling.
.com .org .net .info .biz so don't scream if you haven't read the legal mumbojumbo above the "I agree" button!
Thing is, in France, trademark law will prevail when it comes to
Country TLDs ownership rules differ from country to country, unlike the usual
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
Have you never eaten Milka chocolate? You get it in Europe and its actually really rather nice :)
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Yes, *she* is some lady who touches up and adjusts clothes.
This is her one big chance at fame, let her bask in the spotlight.
Her site has been dormant for a couple of years now, its just recently with the media "interest" that shes spruced it up.
Mind you, it looks downright awful, but who am I to judge.
liqbase
You forgot the third one, liberte, egalite, et fraternite (sorry, no accents) - she should be brotherly, and let them have the domain. She's been effectively squatting for 3 years, anyway.
Kraft also own a wide range of other chocolate brands, including Toblerone, Cote d'Or (one of my personal favourites, especially the one with pecans) and Suchard.
Ferrero who produces among others the horrible Kinder-chocolate and Nutella is an Italian company a.f.a.i.k .
It is true that german courts always back the most ludicrous demands when it comes to brand names vs. people's names.
Please stop saying irregardless... it makes people's intelligent points stop sounding so intelligent...
It's not a word...good grief
Cadbury isn't American its English. http://www.cadbury.co.uk/EN/CTB2003/about_chocolat e/history_cadbury/
At the moment their "friendly" solution is to pay for the costs of taking the domain milka.fr from the lady and offering her milkacouture.fr, which is useless to her, because her clients don't know it. She also does not understand why they complain, because she did not do them any damage. Milka claims there is a link between the ladies site and www.food.fr, whish sells pizzas in Valence.
She also says that her site will not lead away internetters who look for the chocolate company, because she only appears as 41th on search engines.
She concludes to say that KRAFT never wanted the best for both parties, and only wanted her to give up the domain name, and only after a struggle of 2 years they are prepared to reimburse her the costs she has made.
The owner of the armani.it domain, a stamp maker from Milan (if I remember correctly) was forced, after years of legal battle, to resign the domain to the fashion designer (Armani).
Search on google "timbrificio armani" if you are interested and you can read italian.
Ciao, Renato
Its automatically inserted by Dreamweaver 4 (not usually MX or MX 2004) when you use the "Timeline" feature or add an absolutely positioned element to the page.
:)
Still, not as bad as FrontPage
In order to fill a gap in Europe?
Note that they don't have most of the nordic countries nor the new members of the EU. Hint: many of these domains are open for registration!
Most of these sites redirect to the corresponding Kraft Foods site for that country, or to the globak www.kraft.com.
-Raphaël
Côte d'Or is owned by Kraft as well. You can see it by looking around on http://www.cotedor.be/ or directly on http://www.kraftfoods.be/. Fortunately, they haven't changed the products in any significant way so they still taste good.
I would also also recommend trying Galler chocolate (not owned by Kraft Foods - yet).
-Raphaël
I just realized that I missed an important one:
Until a few years ago, companies that had trademarks in France were supposed to register their domains under .tm.fr. Apparently, Kraft did register www.milka.tm.fr.
But since the rules have changed (around 2002, I think) the company has been trying to get the domain that had been registered by that lady in the meantime.
-Raphaël
Things ARE going to get worse, as Europe as decided a little while ago that the name chocolate would be allowed for products containing other vegetal oils than cocoa butter (i.e. soy bean, etc). Until then, in some countries chocolate HAD to contain only cocoa butter.
;-)
In reaction, Belgium has created a new label "Ambao" which identifies chocolates containing only cocoa butter. I suppose (and hope) that similar initiatives have been taken in other countries where chocolate is taken seriously
See this article for details...
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Kraft Deutschland owns the Milka brand, which is one of the finest varieties of chocolate in Germany.
Honestly, I disagree with he "finest" part. Rather, Leysieffer or Lindt come to mind if quality is what I am prompted with (also, compare the style of these sites with "milka" and draw your own conclusions about the targets).
Hard to believe that the most sold product in the segment/category is upmarket anyway.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
You skipped the part about how it's a "word" created in America in the 20th century, from a blend of "irrespective" and "regardless." The "ir-" prefix and "-less" suffix are redundant. You also fail to mention that Webster's recommends it not be used. Dictionary.com is less kind, calling it a "blunder."
This is an example of a made up word that does not have a correct usage, but American dictionaries put it in because so many people make the mistake. Because it isn't correct usage, many people will make possibly unfounded assumptions about your intellect.
Philip Morris used to own Kraft (and Milka).
In 2001 they split the company, and now Altria Group owns both.
Have you tried Ghirardelli? It's American, and it's heavenly.
no it is not. it is below average by german standard. just very well marketed.
Conservatism: The fear that somewhere, somehow, someone you think is your inferior is being treated as your equal.
That said, it's likely that this domain name was chosen on purpose (I think her son took care of the web site) to get more audience. No doubt it was chosen on purpose; it's her first name and the name by which her storefront is known. Also, she's not just making alterations, she makes clothing on demand for her clients, according to their measurements and tastes. Hence the term couture. Of course, don't expect /. to know much about fashion.
Signed, A Fluent-in-French Fashion Designer