Legal stoush continues over NetXpress name.

Winc Australia has won an interim injunction against New Zealand’s NXP Holdings and its parent company Tiri Group to secure its rights to various ‘NetXpress’ trademarks.

According to Reseller News NZ, Winc won an interim injunction against the three respondents, forcing them to stop using the marks, which covered, among other things, retail and wholesale mail and electronic ordering and distribution.

For NXP, which acquired Winc NZ last year, to be viable as a stand-alone business, it was necessary for it to separate Winc's Australian and New Zealand e-commerce platforms.

The now separate private equity-owned Winc Australia and NXP entered into a transitional agreement allowing NXP to use Winc-owned brands and domains for 12 months while NXP changed its branding.

However, a dispute arose between the parties over the meaning of transitional and trademark clauses in their agreement and what was included in their scope.

In March 2019, NXP rebranded its business from Winc NZ to Net Xpress Procurement. It then applied to revoke Winc’s registrations for the NetXpress trademarks.

It then rebranded to NXP and withdrew its revocation application in an attempt, the judgement said, to avoid proceedings.

The respondents then confirmed their intention to continue to use the word “NetXpress” to brand the e-commerce platform, leading to court action.