Fashion designer, Kraft fight over website address

PARIS: A court case pitting a French fashion designer against the US company Kraft Foods started in a local suburb Monday, with the two fighting over a French website name, www.milka.fr.

The US firm wants Milka Budimir, a 58-year-old stylist who owns two clothing shops in southern France, to cede control of the site she currently owns to promote its Milka brand of Swiss chocolate, whose advertising icon is a purple cow.

But Budimir has struck back, demanding Kraft Foods – a subsidiary of the Altria group that owns Philip Morris, the cigarette manufacturer – pay 90,000 euros (RM446,000) in damages and 10,000 euros (RM50,000) in legal costs for defending her right to use the site.

“This has been a nightmare for the past two years. But I never thought anybody could mix up my name with the chocolate. And this is my one and only first name,” Budimir told the court in Nanterre.

In opening arguments, Kraft’s lawyer accused Budimir of being a cybersquatter who had taken the site with the aim of selling it for a profit later or using the chocolate brand’s profile to attract visitors on the Internet.

The lawyer said Kraft wanted the woman to pay 3,500 euros (RM17,000) in damages, 3,000 euros (RM15,000) in legal costs, and that she move to a new website address, www.milkacouture.fr. – AFP