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Records from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) indicate that The Walt Disney Company legally owns the popular Swahili phrase 'Hakuna Matata'.
Disney, headquartered in California, USA, acquired legal rights to the phrase in 2001 after it filed a federal trademark registration for ‘Hakuna Matata’ under serial number 74558335 and was given the trademark through registration number 27006605 for use on clothing.
The trademark means the phrase cannot be used by any other organization or on merchandise by any other company unless with prior approval from Disney.
The 'Hakuna Matata' slogan originated and is widely used in Kenya, and was popularized in 1982 by a Kenyan band ‘Them Mushrooms’ in their popular song “Jambo Bwana.”
'Hakuna Matata' loosely translated to English means 'there's no problem'.
Early this year, a non-profit organization, Maasai Intellectual Property Initiative (MIPI) began legal steps to protect the cultural heritage of the Maasai people.
The organisation hired lawyers to persuade multi-national companies to recognize Maasai trademark and pay for it.
The organization want to force firms such as France's Louis Vuitton’s collection, which has patented the Maasai shuka, be forced to pay for it.
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You have a deep misunderstanding of trademark (not patent by the way) law, absolutely none of what you say is even remotely possible. We are free to use all of the names unless they are a brand name "Nairobi brand coffee" for instance. No it is not colonization, unless you think you 'own' your culture. Do I have to pay you every time I say Nairobi? do you have to pay me to say "Los Angeles" or say "hot dog"? Any person can become as 'white culture' or French culture or Chinese culture as they want, they do not have to pay a royalty to do that.
Yet we have lawyers who claim to have African interest at heart-wake up and fight a noble war, so can anyone patent the name WELCOME I see it on the door mat everywhere, hell NO - this is a language used by more than 300 million people and as a form of greetings when one wants to know how you are doing the response is hakuna matata. This bullshit appropriation of African culture wealth got to come to an end.
Bull! That's just the same way they did brands and products like kiondoo. At one time Maasai and probably many others. Some white man leaves wherever boring part of the world he/she comes from and decides to grab, claim and own everything? Nothing new here. Next?
This guys can own the logal but not the PHRASE. Don't be fooled!. KENYA YETU (HAKUNA MATATA). Can also use it to show awareness that there is no problem in our country. They can't stop us using the phrase.
How can you steal a phrase from another culture and patent? That is international culture robbery
They should be paying the "Them mushrooms". They coined the phrase. Are they still alive?
If the Maasai believe that then please tell them to stop wearing pants and speaking English without paying for it. Sorry but the Maasai have an appealing but deeply racist sense of ownership of 'culture' and 'heritage'. No one 'owns culture' The same logic is like saying 'you can't act like a white person unless you are white'.
People are individuals not races, they are not owned by their race or culture nor is their culture owned by their race -they can adopt any culture they want to. So the most ebony man can play Beethoven and the most blonde white boy can sing rap music if he wants to. They do not have to ask permission from some race or culture government to do it and the 'owners' are not entitled to a toll fee.
It is also a simple misunderstanding trademark law, like getting a trademark on "It's all good, dude" from American culture, everyone can still use the phrase, just not identify their products from a company named that. So what?
This is modern day colonization. Colonization was that you could not use your own land to grow , tea, coffee or whatever we restrict. You cannot use your own language in your own country. Now that we cannot be stopped from using our own languages, someone is working on putting restrictions on what we can and cannot use in our language's. Soon they will patent our national anthem and any time we sing, we Will have to pay. If they take "Jambo" we cannot say hellow to each other. If they patent our whole language, we Will not be able to talk. They will patent our local names, so we cannot call each other by name. They will patent The names of our towns and villages. They will patent The names of our roads and rivers. Let us know what in the world can and cannot be patented? They will patent, the color of our skin. Anyone who happens to be born black will be paying because they wear that color from birth to death. They will patent soil, or Mountains (Mt. Kenya) so anyone going there will have to pay. They will patent our forests and animals. Where does this patenting stop? The world greed is overflowing. Where is the world heading? Where does this stop? Greed is what will destroy humanity.