Chicken shop boss loses £12k in Tesla trademark row over 'Tesla Chicken & Pizza' name

A takeaway boss who wanted to call his new shop 'Tesla Chicken & Pizza' has been hit with a £12,000 bill after losing a trademark battle with Elon Musk's car giant.

Amanj Ali, 41, registered the name in homage to inventor Nikola Tesla in May 2020, without objections.

But when lawyers working for Tesla learned he'd registered the trademark in Britain, they launched a bid to protect its trademark for food and drinks services in the UK.

After losing the bitter ‘David and Goliath’ naming battle, Amanj was left with a fine and legal costs topping £12,000.

And Amanj, who currently owns just a single chicken shop in Bury, Gtr Manchester, said he would now not invite Elon Musk to eat at his premises.

He said: “I was so disappointed after all this. All I can say is it is just because a big company [took on] a small company – nothing else.

“When I lost it, I was kind of hurting, but I just tried to keep a secret and not tell it to anybody.

“It was 18 months that I had been fighting them… I couldn’t sometimes sleep properly, and at that time, it was kind of hard for me.

He added about Musk: “If you asked me, 'Will you be inviting him', I would say ‘no’.”

Hard-working Amanj said he had originally applied for his trademark as he hoped to open a new takeaway business in the Greater Manchester area.

He already had a chicken shop called Colorado’s, but felt his new branch would need an alternative name as it would have a different identity.

Amanj claims he struck upon 'Tesla Chicken & Pizza' as the famed inventor had left a mark on him when he was a youngster.

And he planned for his new restaurant to have a mural dedicated to the trailblazer, who pioneered modern alternating current supply systems in electricity.

Amanj said: “In my young age, I read about him... I don’t know whether it is true or not, but some people claim he invented a lot of things.

"For my Colorado’s brand, we do chicken only but with Tesla Chicken & Pizza, I wanted to do pizza as well.

"And we were planning when we open the restaurant, we will have a wall that will have a Nikola Tesla picture."

Amanj’s trademark was successfully registered in 'class 43' for food and drink services, but his plans for a new restaurant later stalled due to the pandemic.

And in November 2021, he got emails from the UK's Intellectual Property Office (IPO), saying another party had applied for the 'Tesla' trademark in the same section.

Stunned Amanj said he had no idea that electric car manufacturer Tesla was behind the application until he researched them on the internet.

He said: “When we Googled that address, it was the headquarters of Tesla Motors.

“I’m a micro businessman being faced [with] one of the richest man’s companies, [so] I found a solicitor, and I called them."

Working with his lawyer, Amanj said representatives from Tesla offered him £750 to sell the rights to his trademark to them in May 2022.