In a jam over nutting much

JP Morgan has been immortalised by the bank that still carries his name, Armani will leave a fashion legacy and Enzo Ferrari lent his name to one of the world's great car marques.

But you've got no chance of naming your company after yourself if you have the misfortune of being born Johnnie Walker or Levi Strauss or even, as it turns out, Zelda Roscherr. Global companies tend to be protective of their brands.

Zelda who? Precisely. She is the owner of a Western Cape jam producer whose bottles of boiled sugary fruit carry her family name and have done so since 2010.

Kerkstraat 22 Konfyte started in 1985 but has expanded in recent years with the support of the Department of Trade and Industry. It began using the Roscherr name on its bottles four years ago.

Now Italian chocolate producer Ferrero Rocher has instructed Zelda Roscherr of Montagu to stop using her name on her jams because they claim it's too similar to theirs.

Ferrero, which built its brand as being fit only to be served at ambassadorial functions, seems to have lost the diplomatic plot.

Rather than being regarded as purveyors of sensuous pleasure, the company behind the famous gold-wrapped pralines, Nutella and Kinder Surprise eggs is being seen as a corporate bully intent on blocking the innocent use of a family name on a range of local products that in no way competes with it.

The battle has no shortage of irony.

The jam maker's website reads: "Roscherr's is a family business built on traditional values." Ferrero's website makes much of the legacy of founder Pietro Ferrero who, in the 1940s, chose to change the way Italians bought confectionery. Visitors to the site are bombarded with imagery of tradition and similar wholesome values.

Now a 70-year-old global confectionery player, it has gone as far as to apply for the cancellation of the Roscherr's logo trademark. The company logo in no way seeks to emulate that of the Italian company.

It is characterised by a distinctive red font and a spoon carrying a dollop of jam. The clue may lie in the fact that it is registered in class 29 of the trademark legislation under "Jams; preserves; dried fruit; nuts".

Ferrero is known for using hazelnuts in its range. But Ferrero's legal argument suggests that jams are similar to chocolates and the consumer will be confused into believing Roscherr's jams are a spin-off of its Ferrero Rocher brand.

Um, really?

Not to be outdone, Roscherr's has hit back and launched a counter-application for the partial cancellation of the five registered trademarks relied upon by Ferrero.

The eloquent, mild-mannered jam maker is not going down without a fight.

South Africa is an important market for Ferrero . Its products are everywhere and the family appears to have had a deep affinity for doing business here. Joint CEO Pietro Ferrero jnr died in Cape Town three-and-a-half years ago while cycling along the Atlantic seaboard. It is believed he had a heart attack .

The company is no stranger to legal action in foreign jurisdictions. In 2008, it won a court battle against a Chinese company that was producing fake Ferrero Rocher pralines. There, its product and trademark were clearly being ripped off, but its pushing around a small jam producer is harder to swallow.

Roscherr has called in the big guns and has trademark attorneys Adams & Adams in her corner.

Her lawyers say the case is likely to test the parameters of the legal principle that a personal name may be used as a trademark, provided that the use is in good faith and consistent with fair practice. One of the defences raised by Roscherr's Fine Foods is that the brand owes its existence to the surname of its owner and that the creation of a unique brand identity demonstrates good faith and fair practice.

Again, there is a delicious irony. It was Adams & Adams that has, in the past five years, represented a corporate giant forcing small local companies to alter their brand identities.

French telecoms group Orange pulled a similar stunt on local companies. It had Adams & Adams write threatening letters to anyone using the colour orange as a dominant part of its logo or the word "Orange" in its titles. Small firms were bullied into submission with the threat of costly litigation. Orange Business Services changed its name to O365 Systems rather than incur costs. Agency Orange Ink kept its name but altered its corporate colour scheme.

Just wait till we tell the people at Ferrari there is a chocolate maker from their part of the world using a name that sounds suspiciously similar to theirs ... the chocolates move so fast it's easy to confuse them with a high-performance sports car.

Yup, it's that silly.

Bruce Whitfield is an award- winning financial journalist who plans to give jam this Christmas rather than gold-wrapped hazelnut chocolates