In terms of legal cases, Nintendo is pretty good at winning. However, apparently that’s not true when it comes to the Super Mario Supermarket.
In San Ramón, Costa Rica, there’s a supermarket run by a man called Don Mario (of course) called Super Mario Supermarket. For whatever reason, Nintendo had an objection to the name when the man’s son Charlito tried to renew the trademark (which was already registered).
As you can see by the supermarket’s logo (below), it all seems fairly innoceous and unrelated to Nintendo. The tagline, translated, simply reads “Your trusted place,” and that’s never been a Nintendo thing.
Nevertheless, Nintendo complained, stating that they owned the trademark to Super Mario. Fortunately, it turns out they don’t own the trademark when it comes to supermarkets.
Here’s what Charlito wrote on his Facebook page:
I’m so happy that we won a renowned international Video Game brand a trademark registration process for Costa Rica.
As you know, we have been calling ourselves Super Mario for many years and that name coincides with one of the most famous brands in the world.
When I graduated from the U (2013), I set out to give the business a corporate image and register the name for the grocery store category.
At that time it was achieved, however, last year it was time to make the renewal and guess what, as we have made it known on social networks, the multinational struck the ring and claimed that Super Mario belongs to them globally.
They have a lot of categories listed, video games, clothing, collectibles, toys, school supplies, ornaments, etc. But not the sale of groceries and that’s why the National Register failed in our favor.
Thank you enormously to my legal advisor and accountant José Edgardo Jimenez Blanco who took care of the registration and the subsequent fight for the right to a trademark.
For a moment we thought about throwing in the towel, how were we going to win the pulse to such a commercial monster? More with the amount of legal documents submitted by them to ensure the victory.
Well, by that Edgardo and I stood firm and a few days ago we received the good news.
This is a giant step towards the vision we have and for such a big company to get picky, it’s because we’re getting noticed.
Super Mario is here to stay.
What do you make of this? Should Nintendo have gone after the local Super Mario Supermarket chain like this? I hardly think so. How about you?
Let me know in the comments below!
(Source).