Ben & Jerry's
Ben & Jerry'sצילום: Flash90

Unilever, the parent company of ice cream manufacturer Ben & Jerry's is threatening to take legal action against Israeli NGO Shurat Hadin after the legal organization announced it would create its own version of Ben & Jerry's ice cream in Judea and Samaria in response to the company's boycott of the region.

Shurat Hadin submitted an application to the Israeli Registrar of Companies in July to register a company called "Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream of Judea and Samaria," which would receive legal protection to sell the exact same ice cream with the same brand name, and in fact compete with the original company after it announced its boycott of Judea and Samaria.

In a letter to Unilever, Shurat Hadin stated that under US law, the decision to commercially waive sales of Ben & Jerry's in the territories of Judea and Samaria constitutes a waiver of the Ben & Jerry's trademark in those areas, and so Shurat Hadin now becomes the legal owners of the brand in the area.

The organization claimed that under US law, in order to preserve trademark protection from the use of the brand by other parties, there must be full intent to conduct business in a particular area. Hence, once that person announces that he does not intend to operate in the same area, it means that his right to trademark the property no longer exists

Last week, in a letter obtained by the New York Post, Unilever claimed that Shurat Hadin's interpretation of the law was mistaken.

“Your allegation that Unilever has in any manner abandoned its trademark rights for Ben & Jerry’s is flawed on multiple grounds,” Unilever’s General Counsel Natalia Cavaliere wrote.

“Ben & Jerry’s intends to continue to distribute and sell its products in all of Israel, except for the small geographic region of the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” Cavaliere added.

"Unilever considers any use of its trademark or tradename a “violation of our intellectual property rights,” she said.

Shurat Hadin president Nitsana Darshan-Leitner told The Post: “We hope to have the opportunity to square off against them in a courtroom,” and said that the organization still intended “seize their trademarks and utilize their name and manufacture our own ice cream in every Israeli region they have withdrawn from.”

The Israeli Registry of Corporations has denied Shurat Hadin's request to register 'Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream of Judea and Samaria' since a trademark for Ben & Jerry's already exists in Israel. Shurat Hadin intends to appeal the registry's decision.