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NSMQ organisers secure injunction on "unauthorised" play

NSMQ organisers secure injunction on "unauthorised" play

An Accra High Court has granted an injunction filed by Primetime Limited to stop a play titled “National Science and Maths Quiz” which was scheduled to be staged at the National Theatre on Saturday.

Primetime Limited, producers of the annual quiz competition held between second cycle schools in the country, sued the organisers of the play, Nyansapo, arguing that the company had not sought permission to use the brand name in their production.

According to the Managing Director of Primetime Limited, Nana Akua Ankomah-Asare, the play would have risked hurting the image of the competition by allowing the unauthorised use of the brand name.

She told Accra-based Citi FM that, the appropriate thing the organisers of the play should have done was to seek permission to stage the play and a compromise could have been reached on the content to protect the image of the competition.

“We want to protect our brand. First of all, this production was done without our authorization, without our consent and without our knowledge so we don’t know what exactly the whole play is about, we haven’t seen the plot. If you are going to be using somebody’s brand name you need to ask permission.

“The person is definitely going to make some inputs to make sure their interests are protected. When you don’t do that, there’s an infringement on the person’s intellectual property rights,” she said.

“The other side is that it’s also about the reputation of the brand. It’s about the goodwill that the brand has in the public sphere because once some damage is done to the brand’s reputation, it will take forever for the brand to recover. And in some cases, they don’t.”

Primetime Limited had, earlier in the day issued a statement saying that they would “never tolerate or condone any attempts, however well-intentioned, to deride or discourage any participant or school from being part of this noble joint effort to improve the quality of STEM education in Ghana.”

This year’s National Science and Maths Quiz was widely regarded as one of the best in the competition’s history with Prempeh College coming tops.

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