Swedish Neo-Nazis Frozen Out In Trademark Fight

A German manufacturer of deep freezers has won a trademark battle with Swedish neo-Nazis over the group's name — which the company says is too easily confused with its own.

The extremist group, known as the Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM), or "Nordfront" for short, is too similar to Nordfrost, the firm that claims to be the world's sixth-largest maker of deep freezers.

The NRM, which had registered "Nordfront" with the Swedish Patent and Registration Office, must now stop using the name, The Local Sweden reports.

"The brands are phonetically and visually very similar; only one letter separates the brands. Furthermore, there are conceptual similarities between the trademarks where both can be associated with geographic and meteorological conditions," Nordfrost wrote in its complaint, according to The Local.

"There is, in our opinion, an obvious risk that third parties will mistakenly get the impression that there is a commercial link," Nordfrost wrote.

The Local reports:

"Earlier this year, anti-racism foundation Expo said that the NRM was the driving force behind a surge in neo-Nazi activity in Sweden during 2016, with propaganda-spreading including the distribution of flyers and stickers their most common form of activity."

Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.