A small lifestyle magazine in Lancashire called Highlife has had to change its name after it was issued with a trademark warning from British Airways.
The airline giant, which has an inflight magazine of the same name produced by customer publishing house Cedar Communications, first wrote to the Sefton and West Lancs Highlife Magazine in October last year.
BA has owned the trademark on the word Highlife since February 1974, preventing any other organisation using it for a printed publication.
A British Airways spokesman told Press Gazette: “We approached them in order to protect our trademark and requested that they ceased using the name.
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“But we said that they could delay the full-blown change until spring 2009.”
The local quarterly magazine, which is owned by the Champion Media Group and distributed to 20,000 high-earning homes in West Lancashire, asked its readers to suggest an alternative name.
Editor Rebecca Keegan said she received more than 150 suggestions and the magazine has now decided to go for the name Gr8 Life instead.
“We were astonished that the airline would be concerned by our publication as it operates in a wholly different environment,” she told Press Gazette.
“As a small, local publisher we found it hard to believe that such a massive corporation could feel threatened by us.”
Keegan added: “It’s cost a lot of time and effort – but money-wise it’s cost us nothing.”
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