It’s not often that you hear about Nintendo losing a legal battle. The Big N is known to be extremely litigious and they almost always win in the courtroom, but the key word in that statement is almost. There are times when Nintendo is declared the loser, and this happens to be one of those instances.
A grocery chain has faced off against Nintendo over the name of their establishment, which is called “Super Mario.” The grocer claimed that they had this name for many years, and snagged the registration in the grocery category. Nintendo believed the name to be encroaching on their own registrations, but the judge presiding over the case felt differently.
The judge said that Nintendo does indeed have the Super Mario name registered in a ton of different categories, but “grocery” wasn’t one of them. This caused the legal battle to end in favor of the grocery chain, who can continue using the name without issue from Nintendo.
Now, whether Nintendo decides to have the case tried again or they look to address things in another manner, that remains to be seen. We’ll keep tabs on the situation and bring you any updates we find.
