The toy company, which closed all its UK stores last year, says the name of the KidzRus nursery group in Manchester infringes on its trademarks.
KidzRus was contacted by solicitors for Geoffrey LLC, which operates the Toys R Us brand, in November 2018, three months after the nursery group had applied to register the trademark ‘Kidzrus Nursery Ltd’ for £500.
Geoffrey LLC says it owns the UK and EU registrations for ‘R Us’ trademarks and has asked for the Kidzrus application to be withdrawn and the name of the group to be changed.
The solicitor’s letter to Kidzrus states, ‘Your UK trade mark application has come to our client’s attention. Our client has very serious concerns about your application and your use of the Kidzrus Private Day Nursery Every Child, Every Chance and device mark because of the “R us” element, which clearly derives from our client’s family of “R US” marks.’
Kidzrus opened its first nursery in 2010 and now operates five settings, which offer a total of 343 places to children in the Greater Manchester area.
Director of Kidzrus Nicola Fleury said, ‘We’ve worked so hard to establish our name and reputation within the childcare sector and develop the group, with two nominations at the Nursery World Awards 2018 and a new nursery opened last year, that to change our name now would be so damaging and detrimental.
‘Our name is how people find or contact us, especially when they can’t come in to the nursery. We get a lot of new parents searching for us on Google and we post every day on social media. It is impossible to put a price on the brand.
‘I started childminding in 2006 with the vision of setting up a small chain. To have this all suddenly taken away from us would be devastating.’
Kidzrus is currently seeking legal representation and continuing discussions with representatives of Toys R Us.
Ms Fleury added, ‘We are extremely keen to resolve the matter amicably and continue to operate using the Kidzrus Nursery name.’
