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.<br /><br />Amanj Ali, 41, registered the name in homage to inventor Nikola Tesla in May 2020, without objections.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />After losing the bitter ‘David and Goliath’ naming battle, Amanj was left with a fine and legal costs topping £12,000.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />“When I lost it, I was kind of hurting, but I just tried to keep a secret and not tell it to anybody.<br /><br />“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. <br /><br />He added about Musk: “If you asked me, 'Will you be inviting him', I would say ‘no’.”<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />Amanj claims he struck upon 'Tesla Chicken & Pizza' as the famed inventor had left a mark on him when he was a youngster. <br /><br />And he planned for his new restaurant to have a mural dedicated to the trailblazer, who pioneered modern alternating current supply systems in electricity.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />"For my Colorado’s brand, we do chicken only but with Tesla Chicken & Pizza, I wanted to do pizza as well.<br /><br />"And we were planning when we open the restaurant, we will have a wall that will have a Nikola Tesla picture."<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />Stunned Amanj said he had no idea that electric car manufacturer Tesla was behind the application until he researched them on the internet.<br /><br />He said: “When we Googled that address, it was the headquarters of Tesla Motors.<br /><br />“I’m a micro businessman being faced [with] one of the richest man’s companies, [so] I found a solicitor, and I called them."<br /><br />Working with his lawyer, Amanj said representatives from Tesla offered him £750 to sell the rights to his trademark to them in May 2022.
