Ikea has lost the rights to its own name in Indonesia after the country’s highest court ruled that the trademark was owned by a local company.
Indonesian rattan furniture company PT Ratania Khatulistiwa registered its Ikea trademark in December 2013. It’s an acronym of Intan Khatulistiwa Esa Abadi, which refers to the rattan industry.
The supreme court said the Swedish retailer, which registered its trademark in Indonesia in 2010, had not actively used its trademark in three consecutive years for commercial purposes, which meant it could be deleted under Indonesia’s trademark law.
The ruling came in May last year but was only published on Thursday, online, by the court.
Ikea’s only outlet in Indonesia opened at Tangerang, near the capital, Jakarta, in late 2014.
A supreme court spokesman said on Friday that the ruling was not unanimous. One of the three judges on the panel argued that the trademark law could not be applied to a company the size of Ikea, which is much bigger than the plaintiff, Ratania.
The Indonesian firm took its case to the central Jakarta district court in mid-2014, when Ikea was building its first store in Indonesia. The district court ruled in September 2014 that the trademark was owned by Ratania and ordered Ikea to stop using its own name, which is an acronym for its founder Ingvar Kamprad and the farm Elmtaryd and village Agunnaryd where he grew up. The Swedish firm then appealed to the supreme court.
