Court Fines Facebook N10m Over Unlawful Trademark Interference

A Federal High Court in Lagos has ordered Facebook Inc and Facebook Ireland Limited to pay the sum of N10 million to a Nigerian firm, Double Paws Enterprise, as damages for unlawfully interferring with the use of the firm’s trademark.

Justice Ayokunle Faji, in a judgment delivered on Friday, also granted an order of perpetual injunction restraining Facebook from interferring with the plaintiff ’s statutory rights under the Trademark Act.

The Nigerian company, Double Paws Enterprise, had sometime in July, 2017, instituted the suit marked FHC/L/CS/1164/2017, against Facebook Inc and Facebook Ireland through its counsel, Gideon Okebu of GM George-Taylor & Co.

In the suit, the plaintiff had prayed the court to determine the following: whether having regard to the unchallenged registration of Pawsbook. Com & Device as a class 41 trademark, under Trademark Act Cap T13 LFN, it has right to use the trademark in doing business.

Whether the defendants being international companies that are proprietors of a trademark, Facebook, registered under the laws of Nigeria, under Trademark Act Cap T13 LFN can seek to render nugatory and abrogate another registered trademark, registered under Nigerian law, through self help and without recourse and in complete disdain for the provisions of Section 6 and 36 (1) CFRN 1999 (as amended) and Section 20, 21, 39, and 54 of the Trademark Act.