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Folio Communications Limited, owners of Daily Times of Nigeria Plc, have threatened to take online news medium, Premium Times to court if it fails to drop the word “TIMES” from its brand name.
According to a letter addressed to the Managing Director/Editor in-Chief of Premium Times, Dapo Olorunyomi, the solicitors to Folio Communications Limited, Elias Mordi & Co, told the online medium to drop the word “Times” from its name because the continued use of the word by Premium Times would amount to them enjoying their clients goodwill which they took years to build.
The letter reads in part:
“Our client is the publisher of the Daily Times, Weekend Times, Sunday Times and Business Times amongst other newspapers and special publication. In Nigeria, the word ‘Times’ when associated with any newspaper publication has come to have a secondary meaning as denoting our client’s publication by the reading public, and that is the extent of the goodwill our client enjoys in the word ‘Times’ as a matter of trade name. Your publication, ‘PREMIUM TIMES’ has a tendency of appropriating our client’s extant goodwill as already explained above and constitute actionable passing off. We, therefore, demand that you forthwith cease and desist from using the ‘TIMES’ in your future publications.”
The Managing Editor, Musikilu Mojeed, said the matter has been referred to the company’s legal team.
He declined to make further comments on the issue, saying he was too busy “to respond to ludicrous claims by a party that might be fighting a proxy battle”.