A small supermarket in Costa Rica won in court against Nintendo. The reason for the lawsuit was the name of the shop, which is named after its founder.
What kind of supermarket is that? The supermarket proudly bears the name “Súper Mario”, named after his founder Don José Mario Alfaro González. Don Mario opened the shop under this name 52 years ago (via PC Gamer) – 12 years before the first Super Mario Bros. was released in 1985.
At that time, however, it was missed to have the name entered as a brand. This was only done when Mario’s son Carlos “Charlito” Alfaro returned from the university in 2013 and the supermarket applied for the renewal of his brand name.
As Carlos “Charlito” Alfaro explained in a contribution on Facebook, Nintendo became aware of the supermarket via social media and claimed that the name Super Mario belongs to them worldwide. This was followed by a lawsuit by the group.
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Family was about to give up – in the end wins
How did it go to court? Alfaro and his family hunted the prospect of starting this size in court against an international group. You were about to simply give up and change the name to avoid a costly procedure.
For a moment we thought about throwing the towel, how would we defeat such a commercial monster? All the more because of the number of legal documents you submitted to secure victory.
Carlos “Charlito” Alfaro via Facebook
In the end, however, it was decided not to give in small. The decision of the national register of Costa Rica was – completely unexpectedly – in favor of the supermarket. The reason: Nintendo had the trademark rights in a variety of categories such as video games, clothing, collective objects, toys and more, but not for the sale of food.
In a short video that Carlos “Charlito” Alfaro later published on Facebook, he proudly shows his father Don Mario in the background and says: “He is Don Mario, he is my father, he has been here for 52 years The founder of Super Mario. “
Nintendo is notorious when it comes to protecting his trademark rights in court: regardless of whether it is fan projects or other games. For example, the Survival hit Palworld from Nintendo was sued, whereupon the developers even changed an animation in the game.