German firm wins trademark lawsuit against Swedish neo-Nazis
July 5, 2017
Deep-freeze logistics company Nordfrost has won a copyright lawsuit against a Swedish neo-Nazi organization, local media reported Wednesday. The firm claimed that the Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) using the term "Nordfront" for their website and promotional materials could be mistaken for their brand.
"The two labels are phonetically and visually similar, differentiated only by one letter," read Nordfrost's complaint, according to Austrian public broadcaster ORF. "In our opinion, there is a clear risk of a third party getting the impression that there is a commercial connection."
The Swedish Patent and Registration Office (PRV) agreed with the "number 6 in the world in the deep-freeze sector." NRM will no longer be able to use the Nordfront label.
NRM and the rise of racist violence
The NRM neo-Nazi movement has been around since the mid-1990s, when it was known as the White Aryan Resistance. Since then, it has changed its name and grown from its base in Sweden to include chapters in Finland, Norway and Denmark. Over the years, the group has been linked to a number of crimes including murder, anti-Semitic hate crimes, assault, drug trafficking and illegal possession of weapons.
According to author and journalist Stieg Larsson, the group originally modeled itself after the short-lived US white supremacy group The Order, most famous for its role the murder of liberal radio commentator Alan Berg.
In early 2017, the Swedish anti-racism magazine Expo said that NRM was mostly responsible for the uptick in racist incidents in Sweden in the previous year.