Business clash over an ancient Greek deity

It is the most interesting commercial and cultural battle between a Turkiye bookshop-owner and a large French fashion house. Umit Nar, a bookseller in the city Turkiye city of Izmir, has sought Hermes as brand-name for his business. The famous French fashion house Hermes objected in the Turkiye patent office that it cannot be given because it conflicts with its own business, though its business segment is different from that of Nar’s. A court in Ankara has held that the French business does not have an exclusive claim over the name.

Details of the judgment are awaited, but Irmiz’s bookshop-owner Nar is happy that he has won the case. Nar told the news agency AFP: “Hermes is a god in Greek mythology who belongs to the cultural heritage of humanity. He should not be owned by a company. This is an important decision in this sense.” He also said that Hermes is linked to the ancient history of Irmiz, which was known as Smyrna in antiquity.

The issue goes a little beyond the battle between a bookseller and a fashion house. It is the attempt by a European brand to own cultural icons and terms, and its argument that no one else can use the name Hermes. The bookseller’s lawyer, Hilmi Gullu, explained the commercial aggression behind the French brand’s claim. He said, “Multinational firms like Hermes have an aggressive trademark registration policy, beyond their own industries. This verdict paves the way for saying no to these practices.”  The legal tangle began in 2021 when the Irmiz bookseller sought Hermes as his trademark. The French company immediately filed an objection saying that the similarity could cause “risk of confusion” though their businesses were very different. And it offered the weak argument that it was in publishing as well because it runs a house magazine.

Cultural appropriation is a big issue in the West but it was never considered in the context of commercial interests and East-West relations. The claim of the French company is rather absurd on the face of it because Umit Nar, the bookseller from Irmiz in Turkiye, is going to compete with the international French brand on an equal footing assuming that the bookseller would have wanted to branch out into fashion-ware. But Nar had no intention of moving away from his book business. But the French company was eagle-eyed, and objected to the bookseller’s claim. And the French company was not fighting the issue in its own territory, which is France, but in far-away Turkiye. There is the presumption here that the European or Western businesses have an international footprint, and that they have a monopoly right over features of their business, including the brand name. So, it felt that it had to fight the case over the name.

This commercial aggression is evident in all of the Western companies doing business in other countries and continents. They demand exclusive rights even as they have no hesitation in exploiting the resources, including human, to run their affairs. Nike shoes can be made in Indonesia and branded shirts can be sewn in Bangladesh sweatshops. And they want to zealously guard their brand names, and assert their monopoly rights. Of course, patents are an important aspect of free market, and it is but fair and right that people who get to use a name first should have a certain precedence. But the claim has to meet certain conditions. In the case of the Irmiz bookseller, the French fashion house’s claim seems to be excessive, beyond the limits of reason. The book business in a Turkiye town can cause no confusion for the international brand of “Hermes Paris”.