The frontman from legendary electronic group Kraftwerk has made a bold new move to protect his band’s trademark rights. Filed Monday in the Deleware courts, Ralf Hutter has filed a lawsuit against Germany based company eZelleron Inc, the manufacturers of energy supply units, for the use of the word “Kraftwerk”.
eZelleron Inc. created a Kickstarter campaign for a portable device that would charge within seconds and could provide weeks of power for all mobile devices. The use of fuel cell technology has helped eZelleron push a new product that is quite literally a “mobile power station”.
While normally this would be seen as an easy win for the electronic band, the dispute will in fact be a way more complicated matter. “Kraftwerk” is the German word for “power station”, which the energy company claims is within their rights.
With tech publications covering the new revolutionary Kraftwerk product, the electronic band claims that their product is in fact, hurting the band’s brand:
“Defendant is taking advance orders for the KRAFTWERK charging device. Therefore, consumers are likely to assume that there is a connection, association, or relationship between the famous electronic Music band and a charger for portable musical-playing devices.”
The complicated lawsuit will tread boldly into the grey area that is the trademark disputes and with this being an international issue, it will take several weeks to reach a verdict. You can read the full lawsuit below:
