Susan’s trademark bid sparks unease at Eden
ONE of Cornwall’s premier attractions enlisted lawyers in an attempt to get a small gardening business to change its name.
The Eden Project had formally objected to a trademark application by the Gardens of Eden in Penrith over the use of the term ‘Eden’, the BBC reported.
Owner Susan Davies named the business after the area where she lives in the Cumbrian district of Eden – which is 400 miles away from the Cornish attraction.
However, after deciding to trademark the name of her company so no one else could use it, she received a letter from lawyers for the Eden Project in October, which said it had discovered the application and was “concerned by it due to its similarity” to the project’s own trademarks.
The letter asked Ms Davies to sign a legally-binding document agreeing to a list of criteria over her use of the word, which included not using her business name outside Cumbria, never using the word “Eden” in any other trademark and never challenging the Eden Project’s use of the word.
Despite initially being willing to agree to only using her business name for gardening services in Cumbria, she said when the legal document arrived, it went “way beyond” what she had expected and added conditions she could not agree to.
Ms Davies said it was clear the businesses were unconnected.
She told the BBC: “I don’t think that, if somebody rings up the Gardens of Eden gardening service to come and do their borders for them, they think somebody is going to come up all the way from that big dome thing in Cornwall to do it.”
The Eden Project has now backed down and withdrawn its opposition to the trademark, after Ms Davies’ concerns were raised publicly. A spokesperson for the Eden Project told the BBC: “As part of a usual monitoring of applications with similarity to our registered trademarks, we have been in correspondence with Susan in relation to her trademark application.
“Having reviewed Susan’s application further and listened to her concerns, we are happy to withdraw our opposition to the trademark application to use the name Gardens of Eden. We wish her and her business well for the future.”